Montpellier vs Monaco Prediction 17 January 2025

🔊 Can the home team take a minimal step towards saving the season? Performing worse in the national championship than Montpellier's footballers have so far is quite difficult. The club confidently occupies the last place in the standings, and the question of retaining their spot in the elite division is gradually being taken off the agenda. Despite having mathematical chances, practically it already seems extremely unlikely. Monaco, on the other hand, continues its pursuit of the leaders of Ligue 1, PSG and Marseille, but calling it successful lately is difficult. The team regularly drops points. Nevertheless, predictions from experts and bookmakers are entirely on the visitors' side, and we won't question their choice.

📊 H2H

In the first round match, the "Monegasques" barely managed to secure a victory on their home ground. In fact, midfielder Lamine Camara tilted the fate of the match in favor of his team by scoring a winning goal in added time (2:1). However, the trend of recent years clearly indicates the visitors' superiority. In the last five matches, Monaco has defeated their opponent four times with only one home defeat. The trend here is quite evident.

🟠 Montpellier

All the worst that could happen to the home team this season has already occurred. But the final chord of this swan song for the club in the top division is yet to come. A completely failed start to the championship led to the resignation of long-time coach Michel Der Zakarian, but this did not save the situation at all. The new head coach Jean-Louis Gasset tried to make changes to the training process and tactical scheme, but it did not lead to a radical breakthrough. The last time Montpellier's players celebrated success was at the beginning of November, defeating Brest (3:1) in matchday 11. Since then, the team has been pursued by nothing but failures. A rather telling example was their exit from the 1/32 stage of the Coupe de France against Le Puy (0:4) - a club from the 4th tier division. After such a fiasco, there is no point in talking about any chances for the home team to survive.

🔴 Monaco

Adi Hütter's charges seem unable to keep up with the pace of chasing the leaders of the national championship. The "Red and Whites" have completely unraveled recently and have managed to secure only one victory in their last seven matches across all competitions. That victory came against Saint-Genis in the 1/32 stage of the Coupe de France (4:1). In all other cases, success eluded the "Monegasques". However, standing out somewhat in this series of failures is their loss in the Super Cup match against the hegemon of French football PSG (0:1). Luis Enrique's charges only overcame resistance from the current visitors in added time thanks to a goal by Ousmane Dembélé. Much was decided then by Matvey Safonov's rather successful play at the last line. Nevertheless, in the upcoming match, Monaco's players should finally break their losing streak.

⚽️ Bet on Goals

The matches of both teams in Ligue 1 often turn out to be quite high-scoring. In Montpellier's case, this trend is quite obvious, as their players make too many positional errors in defense and consequently concede many goals. For Monaco, in turn, high scoring is a direct consequence of their pronounced attacking style. Thus, at least two goals have been scored in 8 consecutive home matches for Montpellier and in 6 out of 7 recent away matches for the "Monegasques". We are convinced of the relevance of this trend. In our opinion, the best bet on scoring is a total over 2.5 goals.

🚩 Bet on Corners

The situation with corner kicks is quite surprising. Montpellier is at the very bottom of the Ligue 1 standings, but in terms of average corners delivered, they are not that bad - 5.41. The "Red and Whites" are slightly more modest in this component - 4.76. We expect much more attacking activity from the visitors, but we are not ready to believe in their convincing victory on corners. A much more attractive option here seems to be with the total number of corners since both clubs are quite active in this aspect of play. We recommend a bet - total over 8.5 corners.

📝 Editorial Prediction

There is virtually no doubt about the visitors' ultimate success. The current form of the home team speaks of a complete playing and mental crisis within the team. Perhaps only cleansing by relegation to a lower division can help the team return to its better version. Monaco also hasn't been impressive lately, but their current opponent should be manageable for the "Red and Whites". The "Monegasques" simply must break their streak of failures and return to chasing the leaders. However, acknowledging that their defense isn't perfect means we can expect some mistakes on their half. We believe that the upcoming game will end with a score of 1:2. Therefore, we recommend betting on - Monaco's victory.