PSG-Monaco (1-1): Paris, without magic, is hooked for the first time this season

This is the reverse layer. This time, the penalty, the third of the season for Paris and all obtained at the Parc des Princes, was settled between big boys who thought of the good of the team, that of not losing on an evening when it does not can’t seem to win. Kylian Mbappé, yet the number 1 shooter, let Neymar hit twenty minutes from time, the Brazilian equalizing.

The two men multiplied the claps in the hands and the hugs in the hair to show that all is well, thus erasing the penalty gate of the second day against Montpellier (5-2). Christophe Galtier’s PSG can still harbor the mad hope of finishing the season undefeated but was able to understand from the 4th day of L 1 that it was a long-term feat, one of the most difficult to accomplish.

So soon, we wouldn’t have understood anything. This draw, which will have long been a defeat, does it already announce the end of the summer, promises and smiles? This quack seems in any case to warn of a return to the dreary daily life of the start of the school year, with its questions, its doubts but also its fears. The first question refers to what precedes this reception of Monaco, a flamboyant continuity broken by this unexciting outing in front of the partners of Wissam Ben Yedder: how can one have been so beautiful for three days to appear so fragile and without spring at the fourth?

First weaknesses

Despite his talent, the suspended Vitinha cannot be the cause of this tasteless rendering even if his replacement, Renato Sanches, never found the connection with the others. The second chapter follows the contours of the attacking trio, very uninspired for long minutes, and annihilating all the inclinations that arose at the end of the first period even if the story could have been different. The double post of Leo Messi and Kylian Mbappé just before the break could have settled the matter and given them wings.

The fear is that of a PSG that we would have seen too good, which would prove incapable of finding tactical solutions when the opponent puts density in the midfield, impact and blocks all the passing circuits of the team’s technicians, starting with Verratti; isolating Leo Messi, blocking Neymar so that in the end Mbappé is all alone and a little naked. Philippe Clément had prepared his match remarkably well, covering all the danger zones that Clermont, Montpellier and Lille had not been able to contain before.

The Monaco coach will give ideas to Ligue 1 and the Champions League, with Juventus Turin present in ten days at the Parc des Princes at the start of the 2022-2023 edition. Paris did not lose but they displayed their first weaknesses, with this 0-2 ball wasted by Ben Yedder as soon as they returned from the locker room. That Paris, anemic and stunted, would never have returned.