The 27 year old has been a key part of the Lyon defence in recent weeks — play­ing 90 min­utes in each of the last six league fix­tures.

Pierre Sage’s side are up to 10th in the table hav­ing sat at the foot of the table back in game­week 15. 

Frus­trat­ing­ly for Saints fans, mid­field­er Char­ly Alcaraz has been ruled out for the com­ing weeks after suf­fer­ing a ham­string injury in train­ing.

The Argen­tine, who joined Juven­tus on loan in Jan­u­ary, suf­fered the injury last Wednes­day with Juven­tus con­firm­ing he will be eval­u­at­ed in 10–15 days to deter­mine the extent of the prob­lem.

The Serie A side drew 2–2 with Ata­lan­ta in Alcaraz’s absence and are now 17 points behind league lead­ers Inter Milan.

Char­ly Alcaraz has picked up a thigh mus­cle injury in Juven­tus train­ing.

Will be assessed again in around two weeks for full recov­ery time — a blow.#Saints­FC

— Alfie House (@AlfieHouseEcho) March 7, 2024

Pol­ish goal­keep­er Mateusz Lis kept his 16th clean sheet of the sea­son as Gozte­pe beat San­li­ur­fa 1–0 in the Turk­ish sec­ond tier.

Lis has played 25 games this sea­son for the Sport Repub­lic-owned side and the pos­i­tive result keeps them sec­ond in the table.

It was just a brief out­ing for Armel Bel­la-Kotchap as his PSV Eind­hoven side beat Go Ahead Eagles 1–0 in the Ere­di­visie.

PSV, while lead­ing 1–0, went down to 10 play­ers when cen­tre-back Arman­do Obis­po was sent off after 88 min­utes.

Bel­la-Kotchap was brought on four min­utes lat­er and helped the Dutch side see the game out to remain 10 points clear of Feyeno­ord at the top of the divi­sion.

41 @eredivisie games unbeat­en! ⚡️#GAEPSV pic.twitter.com/CEehAEmUfx

— PSV (@PSV) March 8, 2024

Domes­ti­cal­ly, Lewis Payne and Der­rick Abu played the full games but were both beat­en in League Two.

Payne was booked as his New­port Coun­ty side were edged out 1–0 by sec­ond-placed Stock­port Coun­ty.

Abu’s Har­ro­gate Town lost 2–1 to Craw­ley Town on a dis­ap­point­ing after­noon for the right-back. Both New­port and Har­ro­gate are tied on 49 points in League Two.

Left-back Romain Per­raud, who is yet to start a Ligue 1 match for OGC Nice this sea­son, was an unused sub­sti­tute again as his side lost 2–1 at Mont­pel­li­er.

Niger­ian inter­na­tion­al Paul Onu­achu remains out due to an injury he suf­fered in Tra­b­zon­spor’s 1–0 win against Istan­bul Basak­se­hir last month. He is expect­ed to be out until late April.