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| All square as Marseille eye title |
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Marseille edged closer to the Ligue 1 title as they fought out a goalless draw at nearest rivals Auxerre on Friday night.
A win for OM would have put them eight points clear with three games to play, while a loss would have brought Auxerre right back into it.
But as it was, neither side could find the breakthrough in a match which turned out to be something of a disappointment.
The first half was played at a high tempo, but was low on quality.
Auxerre were constantly let down by their final ball, while Marseille were denied what would have been their clearest chance when Lucho Gonzalez was adjudged to have committed a foul from Mathieu Valbuena's cross.
After the break, the game picked up a little and Mamadou Niang should have done better from a Gonzalez free-kick when he could only head over.
Marseille had a let-off after 57 minutes when Brandao appeared to elbow Cedric Hengbart off the ball and was lucky not to be shown a red card.
Brandao was involved n a more positive way on the hour mark, heading a Gonzalez corner wide.
At the other end, Valter Birsa tried a speculative left-footed half-volley from 30 yards, which went sailing over the crossbar.
Brandao missed another good opportunity, firing wide from six yards after being played in by Niang.
Auxerre finally had Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandanda worried after 72 minutes when Ireneusz Jelen curled in an effort from 25 yards, but it did not have enough dip to take it under the crossbar.
And Jelen was agonisingly close to connecting with Roy Contout's cross two minutes from time when any sort of touch would have put Auxerre 1-0 up.
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