Reigning Ligue 1 champions start their title defence at home to Toulouse, a team that finished last league campaign in 8th place, albeit just few points behind Europa League places.

MHSC started last season strongly and quickly climbed to the top of the standings, but not even their own fans could predict that Rene Girard’s men would stay there come end of the league championship.

Montpellier, nonetheless, held off challenge from both Paris Saint-Germain and Lille to win their first ever Ligue 1 title, and they are now starting the operation called title defence.

La Paillade were somewhat unfortunate to lose Trophee des Champions match to Lyon on penalties, but they could make things right by winning this game.

Montpellier are 1.79 (11/14) with 188BET to win this game, which is a very good price for reigning champions playing at home.

While Olivier Giroud and Geoffrey Dernis were the only notable players to leave the club this summer, MHSC signed some very good players in Daniel Congre, Anthony Mounier, Gaetan Charbonnier and Emanuel Herrera, so the team look at least as strong as last term.

Boss Rene Girard faces severe selection problems seeing that Younes Belhanda and Anthony Mounier are injured, while Marco Estrada is suspended.

Probable starting line-up (4-3-3): Jourdren – Congre, Yanga-Mbiwa, Hilton, Bedimo – Saihi, Stambouli, Cabella – Utaka, Herrera, Camara.

Toulouse were going strong for most of last season, but the poor finish of the league campaign saw them miss out on the European qualification.

As a result, le Tefece stayed without several important players such as Daniel Congre, Umut Bulut and Anthony Devaux, while Jonathan Zebina was the only notable arrival.

The fact Toulouse have been pretty disappointing in pre-season hints that they will not be able to repeat the showings from last season and they clearly face an uphill task at Stade de la Mosson.

The visitors, too, have some problems before the curtain raiser seeing that Daniel Braaten, Paulo Machado and Etienne Capoue are all sidelined through injury.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Ahamada – Aurier, Zebina, Abdennour, M’Bengue – Didot, Siriex – Regattin, Sissoko, Tabanou – Riviere.