STAR FOOTBALL PREVIEW: Ligue 1 2025/26

🇫🇷 ALL KICKING OFF – LIGUE 1 As part of our build-up to the new football season, we preview the new Ligue 1 campaign with WILLIAM KEDJANYI. 

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Let’s start this preview with the most obvious fact of the new season – PSG will win the league by as much as they fancy. The European champions had the title won by April last season and only lost two matches in the entire season, with 19 points in hand of runners-up Marseille.

Their tally of 84 points was the most in an 18-team Ligue 1 season and was also the best average points-per-game (2.5) in the top five European leagues last season. Nobody’s getting close to them as odds of 1/14 with starsports.bet but who’s going to be best of the rest?

This should offer a real betting challenge and some value here – Just eight points separated second from seventh last term, with Monaco securing Champions League football as Lille just got the better of Nice for the last Champions League spot.

Marseille will be popular after Roberto de Zerbi rejuvenated them last season, finding an attacking edge thanks to the additions of Amine Gouiri, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Adrien Rabiot, the disgraced Mason Greenwood, and Jonathan Rowe. That investment, a response to missing out on all forms of European football the season before, paid dividends and Marseille have added Igor Paixão – a favourite of Arne Slot at Feyenoord – Angel Gomes, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang this season.

They should be heavily involved again, but it remains to be seen how they will cope with the demands asked of them by an expanded Champions League campaign, and Monaco could be best placed to follow PSG home.

They were the clear second-best team on underlying numbers last season – indeed, according to Understat they should have finished 10 points clear of Nice in second – and they appear to have had the best summer of any team chasing Champions League football.

The arrival of Eric Dier from Bayern Munich is a major capture, whilst Paul Pogba’s arrival could be a masterstroke if he is able to rediscover his best form after two seasons away from the game. Upfront, Ansu Fati will bring pace and movement from Barcelona, supporting Mika Biereth, who scored 13 goals in 16 games after his arrival from Sturm Graz in January.

Monaco are settled nicely, with Adi Hütter in his third season at the Stade Louis II, and last season’s squad managed to reach the knockout phase of the Champions League, performing creditably when going out to Benfica 4-3 on aggregate. This season’s unit is most likely stronger and they can follow PSG home.

Nice, whose owners Ineos have a split focus with Manchester United taking heavy amounts of investment, have lost Evann Guessand, their outstanding player of last season, as well as goalkeeper Marcin Bulka, and they have not invested heavily this window. Lille have lost their goalkeeper Lucas Chevalier to PSG, along with Jonathan David, Gomes and Bafodé Diakité elsewhere.

Lyon’s well-documented financial issues – they were relegated by the DNCG, the body responsible for monitoring French clubs’ finances, before that decision was reversed on appeal – have seen Rayan Cherki, Lucas Perri and Alexandre Lacazette all exit over the summer and making further progress will be hard for them.

Monaco look in a better place than all of those sides to make a charge for second and with their ability to handle Champions League and Ligue 1 football not in doubt, they can leapfrog Marseille to be the best of the rest in France this season.

Strasbourg, who were within three points of Champions League football last season, are a fascinating outfit. Led by Liam Rosenior and owned by BlueCo, the same unit currently investing massive amounts into Chelsea, they’ve brought in a dozen new arrivals for this season, a move that they hope will atone for the loss of Andrey Santos and Djordje Petrovic, their two most important players last season. Mike Penders, midfielder Maxi Oyedele and defender Soumaïla Coulibaly should help them step forward, although they do have to cope with the additional demands of European football. Nevertheless, 28/1 about them being best of the rest is interesting enough to take a chance.

At the bottom of the table, Lorient who haven’t been able to make the financial additions that fellow newcomers Paris FC (not to be confused with PSG) have added after winning Ligue 2, and Le Havre, who conceded 71 goals last season, both look at risk. A lack of resources could hamper Metz also this season.

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⭐ STAR MARKET ON LIGUE 1 ⭐
⚽ ALL KICKING OFF – PREVIEWS ⚽

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RECOMMENDED BETS
BACK Monaco Outright Winner W/O Paris Saint Germain 5pts at 11/5 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)
BACK Strasbourg Outright Winner W/O Paris Saint Germain 1pt at 28/1 (⭐ ? CLICK TO BET NOW)

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PROFIT/LOSS (AUG 2025): -8.75 points

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