Toulouse beat Strasbourg 3-1 with two goals from corners and climb to 10th

Toulouse beat Strasbourg 3-1 at the Stadium on Friday night, in the opening game of Ligue 1 matchday 10, and two of their three goals came from corners. Forward Santiago Hidalgo scored in first-half stoppage time, defender Mark McKenzie headed in the second and midfielder Thomas Jørgensen volleyed the third, after Strasbourg's Giovanni Reyna had made it 2-1. The two clubs kicked off level on 10 points. Toulouse now have 13 and sit 10th for the moment, three clear of Strasbourg, who stay 13th.

A scrappy first half, then Hidalgo

Strasbourg had the ball for long spells before the break but created little, and fouls kept breaking up the game as fog thickened over the Stadium. Toulouse left-back Christ Tapé and Strasbourg winger Gessime Yassine were both booked after a flare-up. Just before half-time, Hidalgo controlled a lay-off from midfielder Sion Oppong on his chest, got past Strasbourg captain Karim Coulibaly and beat goalkeeper Filip Jørgensen (45+1). The referee checked the goal on video for a possible handball and let it stand. “We don't know if there's a handball, we don't really know if there's an offside,” said Strasbourg midfielder Samir El Mourabet.

Corners make the difference

Toulouse won seven corners to Strasbourg's one. Striker Casper Tengstedt's header from one of them was kept out; from the next, taken by Venezuelan midfielder Cristian Cásseres, McKenzie got to the ball ahead of the goalkeeper and headed in for 2-0 (56). Strasbourg coach Hugo Oliveira changed his entire front three just after the hour, and Reyna then beat Toulouse goalkeeper Guillaume Restes with a placed shot (67). Nine minutes later, Strasbourg's Filip Jørgensen punched another corner away, the ball fell to Toulouse's Thomas Jørgensen and he volleyed it in (76). Strasbourg substitute Sebastian Nanasi missed from six yards at 3-1 (81). Toulouse's three goals matched the number they had scored in their previous four home league games combined.

Strasbourg's away problem

A 5-1 win over Auxerre at La Meinau last weekend had ended a run of four defeats for Strasbourg. Away from home, nothing has changed: this was their fifth loss in six away league games, with 3 points taken from a possible 18 and 16 goals conceded, and the only win came at Troyes. With 22 goals conceded in ten games, only Auxerre, on 23, have let in more.

Strasbourg's Danish defender Lucas Høgsberg was blunt about the third goal. When a team concedes from a corner, “there's necessarily something wrong”, he said, and he called it “an individual error”. El Mourabet admitted that after the second goal “we switched off, we stopped, we let up a bit”, but ruled out a defensive problem: “There's no defensive problem. It's a bit of everything.”

What next

Strasbourg, 13th on 10 points, are two clear of 15th-placed Angers and 16th-placed Troyes, both on 8. Troyes visit PSG on Saturday (21:05) and Angers host Nice on Sunday (17:15), while Strasbourg do not play again in the league until Brest visit La Meinau on 21 November, after the international break, on the night the club marks its 120th anniversary.