What Is Laurent Blanc's Best Defensive Line-Up at PSG?

Paris Saint-Germain’s historic 2-2 draw away at Chelsea on Wednesday, which sent the defending French champions into the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League on away goals, produced a number of big performances from Laurent Blanc’s players.

Although there were heroes all over the pitch for Les Parisiens, special praise was reserved for the defence. PSG’s back line performed admirably, especially when down to 10 men, despite the two goals Chelsea scored.

Captain Thiago Silva and David Luiz found the back of the net, while Maxwell and Marquinhos were excellent on either side as the full-backs.

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Since the start of this season, Blanc has tended to prefer a defence that pairs Silva and Luiz in the middle, with Gregory van der Wiel and Maxwell on either side. However, after trying Marquinhos at right-back early in 2015, the young Brazilian has become a regular fixture in the starting XI.

The impact made by introducing the 20-year-old to the team has been one of balance.

Although the South American does not bomb forward and provide crosses as much as Van der Wiel does, defensively the team is far sounder and less vulnerable when the Selecao star plays in the Dutchman’s position.

This makes the back line ideal for playing in games when a result is absolutely crucial because it allows PSG to do the utmost to limit their opponents’ chances. It has now also become the capital club’s strongest defensive line-up and it showed why against Chelsea.

Silva is now back to his dominant best, something that we never really saw last season. Luiz benefits from playing alongside a serene presence because of his inability to handle the pressure of being the most influential figure at the back.

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Maxwell is a steady and reliable performer who, despite now being 33 years old, is performing with remarkable consistency at the highest level. While Marquinhos adds to that solidity and also offers some flexibility with the fact that he can move inside and enable the PSG central defence to play as a three-man unit.

Les Parisiens miss out in terms of the threats they pose out wide when Marquinhos is preferred to Van der Wiel, but in his current form the Dutchman is not bringing those same qualities that we saw from him last season when he was first choice.

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The ex-Ajax Amsterdam star is an excellent crosser of the ball but has struggled to produce as many goals this season as he did last. Offering less going forward than he did previously, it weakens his claims to the right-back berth ahead of Marquinhos.

Serge Aurier makes the debate about the right-back position interesting because he is a more balanced option than Van der Wiel but still a better threat going forward than Marquinhos.

Ideally, Blanc would be able to move Luiz into midfield long term in place of Thiago Motta. However, the Italian’s performance against Chelsea on Wednesday suggests that there may still be life in him and that would mean that Luiz stays in defence.

Should the Brazilian eventually move into the Azzurri star’s role, then Marquinhos would naturally move to his preferred central defensive starting position. That would open up the right-back spot and one of Van der Wiel and Aurier would take that.

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In terms of picking the best defensive line-up with that in mind, Aurier would come in because he is a better defender than his Dutch teammate. However, while Motta remains in the team, such a move will not be happening.

So, as for Blanc’s best defensive line-up at PSG for now, it has to be the one that lined up at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

All-Brazilian so with the added benefit of being able to communicate in their native Portuguese to each other, it is the best combination in terms of keeping teams out. However, it does not offer as much as Blanc would probably like going forward, and the introduction of Aurier as a starting player once Luiz is free to move into midfield is how this defensive unit will strengthen further.