Champions League Defeat to Barcelona Underlines Where PSG Rebuild Is Required
BARCELONA, Spain — Paris Saint-Germain are out of this season’s UEFA Champions League after a 2-0 quarter-final second-leg defeat to Barcelona on Tuesday meant a 5-1 aggregate loss overall.
In all fairness, Laurent Blanc’s men were second-best over both legs and the Catalan giants deserve to go through. Neymar’s brace did little but confirm what the first leg had already showed us: that Luis Enrique’s men are stronger than PSG in every department.
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Le President admitted as much to reporters in his post-match interview:
"Barcelona were the better team over the two legs. I regret that we didn't score more goals because we had chances in attack. To compete with Barca, you have to be 100% and take your chances in front of goal. This loss will hurt, but we have to overcome it. We must now turn focus to the weekend's match against Lille. We still have two trophies to win in the league and the Coupe de France.
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Admittedly, Les Parisiens were not at full strength for either match.
In the first, the defending French champions were deprived of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marco Verratti, Thiago Motta and Serge Aurier, while also losing Thiago Silva early on. For the second, they were without Silva, Motta and Aurier.
However, despite those considerable absences, PSG should have done more to trouble Barcelona—particularly in the second leg, when at least Ibrahimovic and Verratti were back.
The biggest lesson that the French outfit must take from their third consecutive Champions League Quarter-Final exit is that they are not strong enough in terms of depth.
Arguably, a full-strength starting XI in both games would have seen PSG push Barca much closer than they did with their numerous absentees. Injury and suspension are part of professional football, though, and the club’s leaders must now look at what went wrong and recognise that a lack of depth was a key factor in their exit.
The likes of Yohan Cabaye and Gregory van der Wiel played key roles in both legs of the encounter, and both were poor in each leg.
The Dutchman was admittedly better in the second than he was in the first—despite taking the shot that deflected in for PSG’s solitary response over two legs—but would not have started at right-back had David Luiz been fit to start and Silva not been injured.
On top of those two, the performances of Edinson Cavani, Maxwell and Salvatore Sirigu over both legs need to be taken into consideration, while it is clear that playing Luiz in midfield rather than defence is the best policy.
Every position in the PSG squad needs bolstering, particularly the defence.
Silva, Luiz and Marquinhos have all struggled with multiple injuries this season, and the only backups for those three are veteran defender Zoumana Camara and youth academy product Presnel Kimpembe.
For a team that harbours ambitions of winning the Champions League one day and felt that reaching the semi-finals this season was a realistic aim, this is not enough strength in depth. PSG ideally need two players in each position of similar quality so that they can deal with the absences of key players in the way that Bayern Munich did against FC Porto in Tuesday’s other quarter-final.
Defence is not the only problematic position either. Midfield and attack—in particular—both require reinforcements judging by the performance over two legs.
The problem with these areas of need is that they come into direct conflict with the club owner’s visions for each summer.
Since Qatar Sports Investments took over PSG back in 2011, the capital club have spent lavishly each summer and usually acquired one big name for a vast sum of money.
In order to strengthen the squad adequately enough to go further in the Champions League, a major summer indulgence will need to be passed up. The focus will need to switch to buying a number of players instead of just one to generate excitement among the media and the fans.
The manner of the Barcelona defeat will hurt and the aggregate score looks bad, but PSG have still made some progress this year thanks to their progress at the expense of Chelsea.
Because of the expectations before the doubleheader with Jose Mourinho’s men, when safe passage to the quarter-finals would have been snatched, nobody should quickly forget what Blanc’s men had to do in order to set up the Barcelona clash.
Absences in both games cost PSG, but the likes of Verratti, Marquinhos and Blaise Matuidi still provide reasons for optimism in the future.
What Les Parisiens’ owners and Blanc need to do now is take the lessons learned from this season’s exit to Barcelona and act upon it. The group needs to be strengthened if further progress is to be made, and a number of under-performing elements also need to be stripped out.
UEFA’s Financial Fair Play limits PSG to an extent, but with some intelligent thinking, the club can be busy in the transfer market this summer.
The biggest question is whether the French giants’ ambitious owners will be able to endure a summer when they put the needs of the squad before their own vanity in terms of making a transfer splash.
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