While the top of Ligue 1 is looking pretty much as expected at the start of the season, as you take look further down the table you’re bound to find a couple of more unusual situations. Montpellier are sitting eight in the table but have the best defence in the league – having conceded only 13 goals this season. Since in the top-5 European leagues only Atlético and Barcelona concede less often, we looked further into them and found not only a very interesting team, but a couple of players worth watching out for.

“Expected Goals” – a metric that shows how often a team is expected to score/concede on average based on the quality of shots occurring in their games – puts them second in Ligue 1 for “xG Against”, with a solid 16.79 that deviates little from their actual goals conceded. This means that this feat is, in large part, skill based and not luck reliant.

A lot of these smaller teams with solid defences succeed via dropping their lines very deep and letting their opponents take a lot of shots. These will then either come from poor locations or are rendered useless due to having so many bodies obstructing the path between the shooter and the goal. This season’s very successful Burnley side is a prime example of this. Montpellier, however, does not approach things the same way at all.

The coach’s touch

Michel Der Zakarian’s team does not let their opponents take many shots at all. In fact, in the top-5 leagues, only 11 teams conceded less shots per game than they do. Out of those, 10 participated in the Champions League this season – something to be expected, since conceding few shots is often a characteristic of teams that are dominant in their leagues and have a lot of the ball. But, again, Montpellier aren’t like them either: averaging less possession than most in Ligue 1 and being a counter-attacking team for the most part.