Metz’ pre-Christmas part to the season has been easily the biggest success story of my ‘long shots’ project: the team, who were an astonishing 1/6 to go down this year, got off to a poor start, though looking competitive, before going on a long unbeaten run. They had lost two before the break, but still looked solid in mid table, as below.

From that position, a team like this should really be looking to consolidate their safety from relegation and then worry about what kind of achievements they can pull off in the remainder of the season. Metz went ahead and did exactly that with their four Christmas games.

Montpellier had won five in six when Metz traveled there in mid December, but Metz are great away and grabbed a win in a scrappy game that kind of suited them. Montpellier didn’t look up to all that much going forward, and Metz got a silly penalty in the second half, and added polish to win 2-0 in the dying seconds.