Nantes vs Guingamp preview - Cissokho fears relegation battle

Nantes defender Issa Cissokho has warned Les Canaris must end their desperate run of results to remove the lingering threat of relegation from Ligue 1.

Michel Der Zakarian's squad have gone seven league games without victory since winning at Lorient before Christmas and, although Nantes lie in 11th place, they are only seven points above the bottom three.

And Senegal full-back Cissokho said ahead of Guingamp's visit to the Stade de la Beaujoire on Sunday that Nantes must start picking up points quickly.

"It is imperative that we take the three points because the other teams are quickly catching up with us," Cissokho told the official club website.

"We had a bit of a cushion which is diminishing and we need to try things and cause teams more problems when we attack.

"We are working on it every day. It's complicated."

But Cissokho said he saw signs of improvement in Nantes' narrow 1-0 defeat to league leaders Lyon last weekend.

"We need to play as we did against Lyon, with aggression and intensity for the 90 minutes," said former Guingamp youth-team player Cissokho.

"If we play as we did at Lyon we will start winning matches.

"We are not the only side in difficulty and there are still a lot of points to be taken.

"There are worse teams out there than us. I know there will be three teams behind us at the end of the season."

Guingamp are two points and three places better off than Nantes and had taken 13 points from a possible 15 in Ligue 1 before last week's 2-0 home defeat to Montpellier.

The Breton side return to domestic action after Thursday night's Europa League match at Dynamo Kiev was halted 15 minutes from the end because of crowd trouble.

The last-32 tie was eventually restarted 15 minutes later and ended 3-1 to Dynamo with Guingamp going out 4-3 on aggregate.

"The players are disappointed but not completely despondent," Guingamp coach Jocelyn Gourvennec said after the match.

"It is not nice to be eliminated. I would have preferred us to go through.

"It would have been a superb achievement but I hope we will come back again next season."

Yacine Bammou could return to the Nantes forward line after being benched at Lyon and United States international Alejandro Bedoya and Johan Audel should also be involved after illness and injury.

Guingamp will definitely be without suspended midfielder Sambou Yatabare and Gourvennec, a former Nantes player, is likely to rotate his squad after the midweek trip to Ukraine with Baissama Sankoh, Christophe Kerbrat, Moustapha Diallo, Ronnie Schwartz and Sylvain Marveaux all set to benefit.