PSG 'Crisis' Talk Premature, but Players Must Take Blame for Issues at Champions
After 45 minutes of the Coupe de la Ligue clash with AC Ajaccio on Wednesday, you would have thought that Paris Saint-Germain were on the verge of a major collapse.
One-nil down to the Ligue 2 side, the doom-mongers were out in force. You may have missed the part where they are second in the league by only a point, in the last 16 of the Champions League and still in every possible competition this season.
"HT: #ACA 1-0 #PSG - Well, the next 45 minutes are massive because for all our possession we're a goal down & inferior in attack.
— 1970 PSG (@1970_PSG) December 17, 2014"
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"Bit worried for Blanc's safety - if we don't turn it around in the second half I fear he may be left on Corsica to live with the wild boars
— PSG Tourist (@PSGTourist) December 17, 2014"
Ever since he was put in charge of the Parisian club, it has seemed that Laurent Blanc has only ever been one game away from a crisis.
On Wednesday, the inevitable happened—PSG bounced back in the second half. AC Ajaccio couldn’t last the pace, and after Edinson Cavani equalled the scores in the 55th minute, the away side went on to win 3-1 in Corsica.
That was PSG’s third win at the Stade Francois Coty in the last three years but only their third in 33 years. Corsica is always a tough place to go, and that showed on Wednesday night.
Since Qatar Sports Investments took over PSG in 2011, the acquisition of high-calibre players and an increased global brand has brought a new type of fan and player to the Parc des Princes.
There is now an air of entitlement surrounding the club—a club that is only 44 years old—and defeat isn’t tolerated. Neither is the failure to entertain at all times.
That sense of privilege has seeped down from the stands to the players and has hindered the club from really dominating their weaker Ligue 1 opponents.
All too often, PSG take the lead in games and think the job is already done. They sit back and try and play out time, only for their opponents to strike back. Sometimes they recover, but sometimes they don’t.
After 18 games, PSG are only one point behind Marseille in top spot. Marcelo Bielsa’s side has lost four games this season, compared to PSG’s one recent defeat to Guingamp. Hampering Blanc’s side is the seven draws they have given up. That’s 14 dropped points, turn one of those into a victory and they would be topping the table.
In four out of the seven draws, PSG took the lead before being pegged back. The latest draw came against Lille at the start of December, and at 1-0, they really should have taken control of the game. Against a side that hadn’t won a game since September, they toiled and floundered, allowing Lille back into the game.
It appears the players believe they only need to do the bare minimum to win. Very rarely do they dominate a team for the full 90 minutes and put them to the sword. Definitely not in the same way that Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich have done in their own domestic leagues this season.
In the French capital, whenever something goes wrong, it is immediately Blanc’s fault, but when there is success, it is the players who get the praise rather than the World Cup winner.
"@Gibney_A @FRfootballMax Team performance did not necessarily improve. Blanc brought on a player who had a point to prove & he did it.
— Jonathan Johnson (@Jon_LeGossip) December 17, 2014"
Going into their game against Barcelona on December 10, PSG were the only unbeaten team in Europe’s leading leagues, but Blanc still had to face criticism.
Losing to Barcelona at Camp Nou with your qualification for the last 16 already secured is far from a bad result. PSG took the lead through Ibrahimovic’s first-half goal and even had a chance to make it 2-0 before Lionel Messi equalised.
Blanc deserved some criticism for the decision to remove Marco Verratti, PSG's best player on the night, after 61 minutes. However, with a choice between Thiago Motta and Verratti, it was always going to be the younger Italian who left the field.
Even though his performances have lacked the same quality as last year, it seems Motta is undroppable this season. He wasn't playing well, and it would have made more sense to bring him off.
Rumours have been growing for a number of months that Motta, along with Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva, has the power in the PSG dressing room,as suggested by Franck Le Boeuf to Le10 Sport (h/t FourFourTwo), and recent performances give more weight to this theory.
In November, after PSG had beaten Marseille, 2-0, at the Parc des Princes, Blanc made some very interesting comments regarding Ibrahimovic’s involvement, via Ian Hollyman of ESPN FC.
"The only risk I took was to include him in the squad because, after only two days work with the ball, he shouldn't even be in the squad. I didn't want to play him, and he understood that very well.
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Which raises the question, if Blanc didn’t want him in the squad, why was he included and why was he brought on? These comments only serve to support the notion that the former France manager is not the one calling the shots at the Parc des Princes.
PSG’s first league defeat of the season came against Guingamp on Sunday, but despite the poor performance, the result was far from a disgrace. The home side were still buoyant after their success in qualifying for the knockout stages of the Europa League and were always going to be motivated for a clash against the reigning Ligue 1 champions.
Last season it took an 86th-minute header from Brazilian Alex to save a point for the Parisians. On Sunday, when Edinson Cavani hit the crossbar and Jonas Lossl made a last-minute wonder save, the equaliser never came.
The players never looked up for the fight, and just like Ajaccio on Wednesday, the PSG players were never going to outperform their opponents in terms of effort.
Every game that PSG face, the opposition treat it as a cup final. They will give their all, and if PSG can’t match that effort and go into the game expecting to win, they will either fall short or just do enough to squeeze out a result.
When Blanc tries to rotate his team and look for inspiration from others in his squad, he is hit with a recurring problem. With players such as Thiago Silva, Maxwell, Thiago Motta, Ibrahimovic and Cavani close to undroppable, it leaves the smallest opportunity for others to break into the first team.
No matter how well Ezequiel Lavezzi, Yohan Cabaye, Javier Pastore and Adrien Rabiot play, there is little chance they will be able to hold down a consistent first-team spot. They will always be the first players to rotate back to the bench.
Pastore has actually been one of PSG’s best players this season, but he has had to play on the wing, as a No. 10 and in the centre of midfield just to make sure he has a place on the pitch.
If the players on the pitch don’t feel there is a threat of being dropped, it will only add to their sense of entitlement and reduce PSG’s chances of really dominating in Ligue 1 and in Europe.
Jean-Christophe Bahebeck returned to the PSG side on Wednesday after recovering from injury. Many expected him to start, but he had to make his impact from the bench. It was his pass that set up Serge Aurier for the second goal before he went and sealed the win with a goal of his own.
The 21-year-old has made an impact whenever Blanc has called upon him this season. Against APOEL and Monaco, his introduction helped PSG create chances. His involvement should be rewarded with a run in the team—or increased minutes off the bench at least.
However, the problem with this nouveau-riche team is that players such as Bahebeck are deemed not good enough for where PSG want to be; they are not marquee names, they don’t attract fans to the stadium and they don’t sell shirts.
France under-21 star Kingsley Coman moved to Juventus this summer for the very same reason. In the few minutes he was given, he showed that he had the potential to be a star for PSG. Coman has continued to show that promise for the Italian club, but as he wasn’t a star name, he wasn’t allowed the time to develop in Paris.
To be a great club, you need a great environment. PSG lack that.
Becoming a great club is not about filling your starting XI with €50 million players. It’s building a belief and a group of players who will give their all for the cause.
Bayern Munich and Barcelona have shown it can be done with a mixture of buying the right players and bringing through homegrown talent. Contrarily, Real Madrid showed for years that success cannot always be achieved by throwing money at it.
PSG is a club hungry for success, and it has the potential to be one of the biggest clubs in the world—both on and off the pitch.
However, unless they change their attitude and allow Blanc to do his job, PSG will always be one game away from a crisis.
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