Nice get back to winning ways at St Etienne
Sept 25 (Reuters) - Nice bounced back from their first defeat of the season with a comprehensive 3-0 victory at lowly St Etienne that lifted them up to provisional third in the Ligue 1 standings on Saturday.
Amine Gouiri, Calvin Stengs and Andy Delort scored to put the side, who slumped to a 1-0 defeat at Lorient on Wednesday, on 13 points from seven games.
Christophe Galtier's side have one game in hand, against Olympique de Marseille, after the encounter was abandoned last month because of crowd trouble, for which Nice were docked a point.
Nice trail leaders Paris St Germain, who host Montpellier later on Saturday, by eight points.
St Etienne slid down to bottom with three points after eight games, behind 19th-placed Metz on goal difference.
Nice, who had conceded goals in two consecutive games after starting the season with four clean sheets, were rock solid in defence and the talent of their attacking players made the difference at Geoffroy Guichard.
Gouiri found the back of the net after 15 minutes with a 30-metre strike that took a deflection off Mahdi Camara.
Stengs doubled the advantage nine minutes into the second half after being played through nicely by Kephren Thuram before Delort wrapped it up seven minutes from time from close range. (Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Clare Fallon)
