Ligue 1 table after matchday 5 - PSG sit ninth and every club can still finish first or last

Monaco top Ligue 1 after five matches, unbeaten on 13 points, and their clinch number for the title is 87, which is every point still available to them. Twenty-nine matches remain at three points each. To guarantee the championship against a worst case in which every rival takes everything left on their own schedule, Monaco would have to win all 29. That is not a judgement on Monaco. It is a measure of how little five rounds can settle, and it is why that figure belongs in a paragraph that explains it rather than in a headline.

Every number below is computed as of the September 20 update, with 42 of the season's 306 matches played. Auxerre against Brest, also scheduled for Sunday, is still to come, which is why six clubs sit on four matches and twelve on five. Clinch numbers are expressed in points rather than wins, because Ligue 1 is a points table, and every one of them assumes the worst case.

The top three. Monaco have four wins and a draw from five, eight goals scored and three conceded, and beat Lens 2-1 at home on Saturday. Lyon are second on 11 points, three wins and two draws, and put four past Rennes without reply on Sunday. Paris FC are third, also on 11, also unbeaten, after beating Strasbourg 2-1. The worst-case line for a top-three place is 98 points. Monaco need 85 of the 87 still available, which means they may drop two points across the entire rest of the season and no more. Lyon and Paris FC each need all 87 still available to them, not a single point dropped in 29 matches.

Lille are the fourth unbeaten side and have a game in hand on the twelve clubs that have played five: 10 points from four, seven goals scored, two conceded. Lyon and Lille have each conceded two, the fewest in the division. Lille's top-three clinch number is 88 of a possible 90, and their title clinch number is 90, all of it. Rennes are fifth on the same 10 points but have already lost once and have conceded nine. Rennes have no top-three clinch number at all: 29 matches at three points would take them to 97, and the line is 98.

French football's biggest club is ninth. Paris Saint-Germain have five points from four matches, one win, two draws and one defeat, with six scored and six conceded, most recently a 1-0 win at Brest on Monday, September 14. They are eight points behind Monaco with 30 matches to play. They have no top-three clinch number either, because 90 available points would take them to 95, three short of 98. What they do have is slack in the other direction. PSG's tragic number for a top-three place is 29: they would have to lose 29 of their 30 remaining matches before that finish became arithmetically impossible. Marseille, 15th on three points from four, have a tragic number of 28. Both clubs have played a match fewer than the sides immediately above them.

The bottom two are the only clubs in the division carrying a relegation tragic number, and both numbers are the maximum. Le Havre are 17th on two points, no win in five, four scored and seven conceded, beaten 3-2 at Toulouse on Sunday. Nice are 18th, also on two points, no win in four, with one goal scored all season and five conceded. Le Havre's relegation tragic number is 29 and Nice's is 30, so each would have to lose every single remaining match for the drop to be mathematically certain. In the other direction the worst-case safety line is 91 points. Nice need 89 of the 90 still available to guarantee survival. Le Havre have only 87 available, cannot reach 91 at all, and so have no safe-clinch number. Read that as a verdict on September arithmetic, not on Le Havre.

Here is the cleanest summary of where the season stands. Every one of the 18 clubs has a best reachable finish of first and a worst reachable finish of 18th. Not one position has been closed off for anybody, including Angers and Strasbourg on seven points in sixth and seventh, and including Lens and Troyes on four. Monaco, top and unbeaten, have no tragic number for a top-three place. Nice, bottom and winless, can still win the title. Both statements are true at the same time, which is the honest description of a five-round table.

Auxerre host Brest later on Sunday, 16th against tenth, before the round reaches its final day. Monday's two fixtures are then the ones worth the attention. Marseille host Paris Saint-Germain, 15th against ninth, three points against five. Nice host Lille on the same day: the bottom club with one goal to its name against an unbeaten side that has conceded two. Those two matches close out matchday 5. The table then pauses until October 10 and 11, when Lens host Lyon, Nice host Strasbourg, Paris Saint-Germain host Le Mans, Monaco host Toulouse and Lille host Le Havre. The full fixture list is at /ligue1/schedule.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number is the minimum number of further points that guarantees an outcome even if every rival takes every point still on their schedule. A tragic number is the number of further defeats after which an outcome is impossible even if the club wins everything else. Rank ranges give the highest and lowest finish still arithmetically reachable, and ties are counted against the club in question, so our clinch can trail an official announcement by a day. The live table with every club's clinch and tragic numbers is at /ligue1, the fixtures at /ligue1/schedule, the qualifying and relegation rules at /ligue1/postseason, and /ligue1/whatif lets you play the rest of the season out result by result. Paris Saint-Germain's own page is /ligue1/team/26339.