The result means that St Etienne are now only three points behind fourth-placed Marseille, who play Monaco on Sunday evening.

It was a throughly deserved win for the home side and they declared their intentions by piling the pressure on the Lille defence almost straight from the kick-off.

After only two minutes, Julien Sable's header was deflected into the path of Ajauro Ilan, but his spectacular scissor-kick shaved the crossbar.

In the 26th minute, St Etienne mounted a quick break and the ball broke to Geoffrey Dernis, who flashed a shot into the side-netting despite being surrounded by two defenders.

The home side looked likely to open the scoring at any moment, and that proved the case as Moussilou put them in front on the half hour mark.

Christophe Landrin's teasing cross found the head of Moussilou, who got just in front of Lille goalkeeper Tony Sylva to put the ball in the net.

Despite being under pressure in the first-half, Lille came out for the restart with renewed purpose and duly grabbed an equaliser after 59 minutes following a mistake by St Etienne defender Mouhamadou Dabo.

Dabo's attempted clearance went straight to Kevin Mirallas, who managed to squeeze the ball home from a tight angle.

St Etienne needed to respond and they did it in style as they regained the lead only two minutes later through Moussilou's second goal.

After a superb build-up, Dernis played a first-time cross into Moussilou who got in front of his marker and produced a fine finish.

In the 76th minute, Moussilou had a glorious chance to grab his hat-trick when he was one-on-one with Sylva, but he could not find a finish.

Late on, St Etienne's Loic Perrin headed against the post, but the home side held on for a crucial three points in their chase for European football next season.