Lille vs Nice Prediction: Sides to play out a fourth straight stalemate

Just a single point separates Lille (fifth) and Nice (fourth) in the Ligue 1 table ahead of their Friday night clash (20:05) at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Villeneuve d'Ascq, where the visitors are targeting a third consecutive win in the competition.

Read on for my Lille vs Nice prediction, complete with all the latest team news and match odds.

Team News

Lille winger Edon Zhegrova has missed his side's last four games with a groin injury but his boss, Bruno Genesio, is hopeful of welcoming the Bosnia & Herzegovina international back into his squad this week.

Mathias Fernandez-Pardo (ankle), Samuel Umtiti, Tiago Santos (both knee), Ethan Mbappe (muscular) and Nabil Bentaleb (heart) remain sidelined, however.

Genesio named a strong starting XI for Les Dogues' Coupe de France victory over Marseille (1-1, 4-3 pens) on Tuesday but we can expect first-choice goalkeeper Lucas Chevalier to replace stand-in shot-stopper Vito Mannone, and the likes of Andre Gomes, Ayyoub Bouaddi and Aissa Mandi will also be hopeful of being reinstated from the off.

Football Odds

Nice also won their Coupe de France tie in midweek, beating Ligue 2 side Bastia 1-0. Les Aiglons made seven changes to their starting XI with only Melvin Bard, Hicham Boudaoui, Badredine Bouanani and Evann Guessand keeping their places. The quartet are likely to be joined again by regulars such as goalkeeper Maxime Dupe, right-back Jonathan Clauss and six-goal striker Gaten Laborde.

Jeremie Boga (muscular), Terem Moffie (knee), Morgan Sanson (ankle), Moise Bombito and Victor Orakpo (both groin) all miss out through injury, though.

Lille vs Nice Odds

Lille haven't won any of their last five games against Nice, last beating their upcoming opponents 3-1 in May 2022, and their last victory over them at home was in front of a spectactorless Stade Pierre-Mauroy a year earlier. Nonetheless, Les Dogues are 10/11 favourites for all three points on Friday, giving the hosts an implied win probability of 52.4%, while the visitors are 11/4, or a 26.7% chance, to make it three league wins out of three in 2025.

No team has drawn more Ligue 1 games this season than Lille's eight and the last three meetings have ended in a stalemate, so the 5/2 for the scores to end level may appeal, and if you fancy a third successive 2-2, following on from a couple last year, that's priced at 12/1.

Lille star Jonathan David, who is expected to leave the club - and France - when his contract expires this summer, is the 23/20 favourite in the anytime goalscorer market, and he also leads the way in the first goalscorer market at 7/2. Laborde is first up for Nice in both markets at 12/5 and 15/2 respectively.

Player to Receive a Card - Benjamin Andre (LIL) @ 13/5

Lille captain Benjamin Andre has been a consistent carder in Ligue 1 over the last decade-plus, picking up 110 yellows and five reds since making his competition debut for AC Ajaccio in 2011. Since he joined Les Dogues in the summer of 2019, the Frenchman has been shown at least six yellows in all five completed seasons, hitting double figures across three consecutive campaigns  (2020/21, 2021/22, and 2022/23).

Andre's numbers went down to eight last season but he's already on seven in 15 appearances this term and has been cautioned in three of his last four league games including last Friday's goalless draw at Auxerre, where he was booked in the 12th minute.

The 34-year-old was shown a yellow in the corresponding fixture last season and has six Ligue 1 cautions in 22 appearances against Nice, who have a few players that could cause the veteran midfielder some problems on Friday.

Guessand, who usually operates in the inside right position, an area of the pitch where Lille's No.6 is likely to be buzzing around, has been fouled 2.1 times per game, on average, in Ligue 1 this season, while Andre's opposite number, Boudaoui, has been fouled 1.5 times per game, on average.

At 13/5, I think Andre is well worth taking on to receive a card here.

Match Result - Draw @ 5/2

In the immortal words of Gary Neville: "This is the banker, this is the one that couldn't fail." Well, not quite, but with Ligue 1 stalemate specialists Lille taking on a side with only two fewer draws than them, and the clubs playing out three consecutive games against each other without a winner being found, a draw looks like the way to go.

Lille's only home defeat this season came on September 1 against league leaders Paris Saint-Germain (1-3) but they've drawn three of their other seven matches at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy and were also held by Juventus (1-1) on home soil in the Uefa Champions League on November 5.

Nice have already drawn three of their nine away games in Ligue 1 and came from 2-1 behind at Friday's venue last season to score a 90+2 minute equaliser.

There has been little to separate the sides after 17 games played, nor was there in November's reverse fixture when Nice struck another stoppage-time equaliser to level at 2-2, so I'm taking a draw at 5/2 all day long.

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