Jordan Ayew delivered perhaps the greatest performance of his career to inspire FC Lorient to an incredible 5-3 victory over Andre’s Olympique de Marseille on Friday evening.
The younger of the brothers scored twice and contributed one assist, while his sibling got on the scoresheet himself as Les Merlus gave themselves a major boost in their battle against Ligue 1 relegation.
For Andre and OM, however, the misery goes on.
They have now lost an unthinkable four matches in a row, and while their title dreams had all but evaporated before this match, they must now be considered outsiders for Champions League qualification as well.
Marseille—who were later described as being in ‘crisis’ by coach Marcelo Bielsa—started dreadfully.
Jordan, returning to the Stade Velodrome for the first league match since leaving his boyhood club last summer, opened the scoring with an effort from outside the box on seven minutes.
OM’s woes grew shortly afterwards when defender Francois Bellugou profited from some dire Phoceens defending to make it two.
The Olympians, visibly stunned, took their time to recover, with Florian Thauvin, in particular, visibly out of sorts.
Marseille responded after the break when Ayew—who perplexingly began the game in the left-back berth—halved the deficit with an acrobatic back-heeled effort.
Soon afterwards, OM drew level when Jeremy Morel headed home from close range. The celebrations didn’t last, however, and Lorient responded immediately—Romain Philippoteaux restoring their lead after Nicolas Nkoulou thoughtlessly ceded possession.
Bielsa rang the changes, and substitute Michy Batshuayi again equalised on 76 minutes with a neat finish.
However, the home side couldn’t profit from the second opportunity and failed to use their platform to secure victory.
At this point, Jordan took the game by the scruff of its neck.
He found space in a left-hand channel and tore through the Marseille defence before finishing superbly past Steve Mandanda.
Any thoughts of another Marseille revival were destroyed two minutes later when another sub, Mathias Autret, finished after a Mandanda blunder—his second in two weeks.
After the match, Jordan was visibly emotional, having given Les Merlus a fighting chance of staying in the top flight.
Andre, by contrast, spoke calmly with Herve Renard, who was sat among the fans. It remains to be seen how many more games the Black Star will play in front of Marseille’s delirious Velodrome fans.
