Saint-Etienne 1 - 1 Monaco: Monaco miss the chance to close on leaders Nice after draw with St Etienne

Monaco missed out on the opportunity to close the gap on league-leaders Nice to just one point after the were held to a 1-1 draw in St Etienne.

The visitors did not have to wait long for a breakthrough when some poor St Etienne defending allowed Polish defender Kamil Glik to head Thomas Lemar's delivery beyond Stephane Ruffier at the near post.

Les Verts offered the perfect response, though, and levelled the game up on 18 minutes in similar fashion. Loic Perrin beat Fabinho to Jordan Veretout's cross before sending a powerful header across Danijel Subasic into the bottom corner.

Undeterred, Monaco hit back and Kylian Mbappe twice went close, firstly drawing a smart save from an alert Subasic with a decent volley before seeing an effort blocked by the impressive Perrin after gliding past Leo Lacroix inside the area.

For all their dominance, Leonardo Jardim's side went in at the break level and the interval proved to be a dampener on their flow as both teams struggled to find any openings in the early stages of the second half.

Then, on 70 minutes, Fabinho almost netted the all important third goal of the match with a superb 25-yard effort but Ruffier was equally on point as he got down to push the Brazilian's effort to safety.

The visitors finished the stronger and yet again Ruffier was called upon to keep the scores level when Bakayoko found Mbappe in the area only for the youngster to be denied by the foot of the St Etienne stopper.

And Ruffier saved his best until last when Gabriel Boschilia looked like grabbing all three points with a jinking run into the area but his left-footed effort was kept out by the left hand of the hosts' man of the moment.

Despite their overall dominance, though, Monaco were made to settle for just a point, denting their hopes for reclaiming pole position in Ligue 1.