PLAYER RATINGS | Clermont 1-5 Marseille: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leads second-half rout

A visit to bottom-placed Clermont Foot offered Olympique de Marseille very little cause for concern, as the visitors rose to sixth in the table with an ultimately comfortable victory. 

Marseille had been dominant throughout the first half but that had only translated to the single-goal lead, as Illiman Ndiaye made it two goals in as many weeks after having only scored once before this season. 

A quiet second half soon burst into life as former Marseille player Bilal Boutobba scored his first for Clermont against the run of play. The hosts had been reduced to long balls into Shamar Nicholson and set pieces, and it was the latter that gave them life as Boutobba stole in to capitalise on Marseille’s poor defending. 

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang only allowed Clermont to dream for a few minutes before he returned Marseille the lead. His initial header warmed the palms of goalkeeper Mory Diaw before he pounced on the follow-up to score his fifth in his last five games.

A thunderous effort from Jonathan Clauss on his return from suspension left Marseille with some breathing space before Ismaïla Sarr and Luis Henrique combined to heap misery on Clermont to maintain interim manager Jean-Louis Gasset’s winning start. A fifth at the death by the substitute Faris Moumbagna only poured salt into the wounds of a team destined for the drop. 

A counterattack for the visitors turns into a simple team goal. Sarr breaks through the Clermont defence and lays the ball off to Luis Henrique for the winger to grab his first goal in a Marseille shirt since 2021. https://t.co/drQd9gKa9N

The Gasset era will only last until the end of the season but it has already left an impressive mark on a Marseille team that has lurched from crisis to crisis this