PSG Upstaged by Clinical Bastia as the Champions' Ligue 1 Struggles Continue

Paris Saint-Germain crashed to their second defeat of the season on Saturday, conspiring to throw away a two-goal lead to lose 4-2 away at struggling SC Bastia. The Corsican hosts were second from bottom in Le Championnat and the French top flight's joint-lowest scoring side but showed a rarely seen clinical edge in front of goal.

Things looked to be going smoothly for PSG after 20 minutes, with goals from Lucas Moura and Adrien Rabiot putting the champions 2-0 up. However, a debatable Ryad Boudebouz penalty and a soft Francois-Joseph Modesto header from a corner levelled things up before the break.

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Bastia were playing with renewed confidence after the equaliser and took the lead spectacularly through Julian Palmieri after 56 minutes. The 28-year-old then wrapped things up with one minute to go to complete his double and a memorable come-from-behind victory for I Turchini.

For PSG, though, things are looking rather bleak right now. A 3-0 win away at Montpellier HSC in the Coupe de France only proved to be temporary respite from a wretched run of league form. Laurent Blanc's men are now without a win in three games in Le Championnat, and Le President will be under massive pressure after this latest setback.

He admitted after the game to PSG.fr (in French) that his team lacked respect and felt that some fundamental mistakes were made.

Old problems came back to haunt Les Parisiens, with a string of sloppy defensive errors contributing to their downfall. No goalkeeper in the world would have saved Palmieri's stunning first, but the penalty, equaliser and fourth goal could all have been avoided from a defensive point of view.

Even if they did stop creating chances after going 2-0 up, the PSG front line cannot really shoulder too much of the blame for this loss.

For all intents and purposes, their job was almost done after that opening period, and they should have just been looking to preserve themselves ahead of the Coupe de la Ligue quarterfinal clash away at AS Saint-Etienne on Tuesday. Instead, they somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

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The real blame must lie with the defence.

At 2-0 up in the game, captain Thiago Silva should have been able to marshal his defence to a clean sheet—or at least only conceding the one goal. Instead, the back line capitulated as soon as the disappointing Gregory van der Wiel was penalised for a handball.

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With panic in the air, something that Silva should be able to keep a tight lid on, organisation went out of the window. That is how David Luiz ended up marking his own teammate, Maxwell, instead of the goalscorer, Modesto, for Bastia's equaliser.

As I said earlier, there is nothing anybody could have done to prevent Palmieri's stunning third. It was simply unstoppable. Rabiot's headed clearance, presenting the Bastia man with that perfect chance for the hit, was not even that bad.

The fourth was shocking defending once again, though, with PSG losing possession of the ball and failing to deal with Palmieri's ghosting run at the back post. Maxwell fell over on the left, failing to prevent Abdoulaye Keita from making the cross while Silva and Luiz were dawdling in the middle.

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However, Van der Wiel was perhaps most at fault, completely losing track of Palmieri and allowing him to connect with the cross despite there being three PSG shirts in the penalty box.

Once again, Les Parisiens' penchant for conceding sloppy goals cost them dearly, with three of Bastia's four being avoidable. However, the Corsicans must be given immense credit for fighting back from two goals down and upstaging the defending champions with some excellent finishing.

Bastia were the joint-lowest scorers in Ligue 1 prior to the match but picked up a big win that will lift their spirits massively as well as taking them out of the bottom three for the first time since November.

However, these are dark times for PSG, with the recent disciplining of Ezequiel Lavezzi and Edinson Cavani papering over the fact that Blanc is still struggling to address the issues within his crumbling side.