PARIS (Reuters) -RC Lens were brought down to earth in emphatic fashion when they where hammered 4-0 at lowly Stade Brestois in Ligue 1 as Nice moved up to second on Sunday.
Lens, who have been playing some of the best football in the league this season, lacked aggression as they conceded goals by Steve Mounie, Brendan Chardonnet, Romain Faivre and Jeremy Le Douaton and slipped down to fourth on 24 points after Nice beat Clermont 2-1 away.
Lens also finished with 10 men after Armand Kalimuendo was shown a straight red card for a dangerous tackle with 16 minutes left.
The result lifted Brest from 17th to 13th place on 18 points and Lens could further slide down to fifth if Olympique de Marseille avoid defeat in their away game against Olympique Lyonnais later on Sunday.
Brest got of to a brilliant start with Mounie heading home from Le Douaron’s deflected cross after three minutes.
Ten minutes later, Chardonnet doubled the advantage by diverting Romain Faivre’s corner kick with his shoulder past Jean-Louis Leca.
Lens were completely overwhelmed and they found themselves trailing 3-0 in the 33rd minute when Faivre curled a fine shot into the bottom corner.
The visitors hit the woodwork twice but Brest completed the rout on 69 minutes when Le Douaron found the back of the net with another curling effort.
Nice benefited from Lens’s failure when Amine Gouiri’s second-half double helped them to a comeback win at Clermont, who had opened the scoring through Florent Ogier.
Gouiri levelled with a superb volley in the 77th and sealed the victory with a curled effort from inside the box six minutes later.
Nice have 26 points and trail leaders Paris St Germain, who beat Nantes 3-1 on Saturday, by 11 points.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ed Osmond and Toby Davis)
