Kylian Mbappé and PSG heavily beaten in Newcastle. LEE SMITH / REUTERS
Luis Enrique’s players did not exist against the starving Magpies (4-1) on Wednesday at St-James Park.
Special envoy to Newcastle
Boldly, Luis Enrique decided to field four attackers at Newcastle. Losing bet. Trailing 2-0 after an infamous first period, PSG lost heavily 4-1 at St-James’ Park which had not seen a Champions League clash for 20 years.
Big pressure from the “Toons”, warm atmosphere and English drizzle? This is what we could imagine at the start of the meeting. And that’s exactly what happened in the English cauldron. If they were not far from opening the score at the start of the game through Dembélé (5th), the Parisians only suffered from the infernal opposing pressure. Superiority materialized with the kind participation of Marquinhos, author of a gross full-axis restart error. Donnarumma saved the house against Isak, not in front of Almiron (1-0, 17th). Gift…
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Moved, the Parisians managed to score from afar (22nd, 26th), while a marking error on Schär almost ended in cash (25th). Isak’s injury allowed Luis Enrique to replace his invisible attackers. But the problem was elsewhere: Newcastle were three notches above in terms of aggressiveness. Perfect example with this grinning header from Burn, after a series of strikes and… a handball from Lascelles (2-0, 39th). La Var kept the suspense going, but the sentence fell. Paris in the middle of a storm (2-0 MT). And it wasn’t over… Taking advantage of Parisian apathy, Newcastle hit the nail on the head as soon as Longstaff took over (3-0, 50th).
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Broth. And hope. When we no longer expected it. After calmly circulating the ball, for once, Zaire-Emery found Hernandez, header and goal (3-1, 56th). Barcola and Vitinha brought new blood to the French champions who had finally gained the upper hand with the ball. No doubt exhausted after such a riot of energy, the Newcastle players folded, but Pope did not break against Dembélé (75th), while Mbappé (84th) and Vitinha (86th) could not find the target. The march was simply too high on Wednesday evening for the sluggish and structureless Parisians, facing a hungry team. Schär added even more depth to the slap in stoppage time (4-1 final score). Back to business as usual on Sunday against Rennes for PSG. For the Champions League, it will be October 25, in Paris, against Milan.
