French Ligue 1: Lorient battle back to win

Lorient put a slither of daylight between themselves and the relegation zone after fighting back from a goal down to beat Toulouse 3-2, making it two wins from two in the process.

Toulouse led at half-time through Tongo Doumbia's strike but Lorient turned the match on its head during a five-minute blitz at the start of the second half when they netted three times through Raphael Guerreiro, Benjamin Jeannot and Jordan Ayew.

Aleksandar Pesic pulled a goal back for the hosts 20 minutes from time, but Lorient held on for the victory and are now two points above the bottom three.

Lorient looked major relegation candidates after losing eight of nine league matches going into last week's fixture against Lens, but a 1-0 win there followed by this result has left things looking a lot brighter for Sylvain Ripoll's men.

That was not necessarily the case at the interval on Saturday though, with Toulouse grabbing a 1-0 lead against the run of play after Doumbia had followed up to score when Benjamin Lecomte parried Wissam Ben Yedder's effort.

Lorient will have felt hard done by to have been behind, having struck the post through Ayew and seen home goalkeeper Ali Ahamada deny Jeannot and Mehdi Mostefa, but they hit back in stunning fashion in the second half.

They might have again feared the fates were against them when Maxime Barthelme's 55th-minute shot came back off the post, but this time the ball rebounded kindly for Guerreiro, who slotted home.

Lorient were ahead two minutes later when Ayew did well down the right before sending in a cross that Jeannot volleyed in from close range.

And it was to get even better for the visitors on the hour mark when they made it 3-1 from the penalty spot. Ayew won the chance after being brought down by Francois Moubandje inside the area, and the Ghana international sent Ahamada the wrong way from 12 yards.

Shell-shocked Toulouse, who had lost five of their previous six league and cup games, managed to recover quickly enough to trim Lorient's lead with time to spare when Pesic converted after Ben Yedder's header had hit the post, but they could not get any closer.