Christophe Galtier has admitted another painful Ligue 1 loss to Paris Saint-Germain and has told the World Cup stars they need to focus again.
PSG started the new year with a seven-point lead in Ligue 1, but that number was reduced to three after defeats at Lens and now Rennes, who beat the Parisians 1-0 on Sunday. Coach Galtier will face scrutiny for such domestic setbacks, and with the stars at his disposal, he knows he and the team must start over. "I was mostly disappointed with our performance," Galtier told Prime Video. We created nothing, and we had very few favorable situations. "We focus on possession and there are so many players with depth that none of them are tall enough to secure the Rennes defence."
PSG scored just 8 goals, the lowest in a league match this season and only one goal on goal. A third defeat in their last 4 league matches away to Rennes saw the Breton side stand in the way of the capital's giants. Galtier pointed to the problem of a lack of clear goals between Lionel Messi and Neymar when trying to pass the ball forward, and that continued when Kylian Mbappe entered early in the second half, replacing poor Hugo Etekeki with one. The former coach of Lille, Saint-Etienne and Nice believes PSG need to get back on track. "Obviously we will have to find more playing styles and connections between the lines," he said. “We knew we were going to have a tough game and we did it. The goalkeeper has no problem. We need to find a variety of rhythms, tones, and artistic relationships between them. "I'm not going to talk about anxiety, but there has to be awareness. We can find thousands of reasons, but the World Cup is over. "Even though we were apart for eight weeks, we had to find consistency and rhythm in our game."
Paris Saint-Germain travels to neighboring Saudi Arabia to face this season's Riyadh side, which includes players from Al'Hilal and Al'Nassr, in Thursday's match. Al' Nasr's new signing, Cristiano Ronaldo, may be on the field, but Galtier wants his players to focus when given the opportunity to train during the holidays. They did not have any further Ligue 1 matches until Reims visited the Parc des Princes on 29 January, despite a draw between the Coupe de France and minor side Pays de Cassel on 23 January. "We will have 10 days to work," Galtier said. Lens is their closest opponent, but Marseille are just 5 points behind PSG. "The tournament is very close," Galtier said. "I'm not used to looking at the charts, but I'm focused on performing and I have work to do."
Warren Zaire-Emery,
at the age of 16 years and 313 days, became the youngest player in PSG history to start in Ligue 1. He played 72 minutes before being replaced by Carlos Soler.
Galtier will gather its players to show a video that compares the team's current performance and their situation ahead of the World Cup. Mbappe was the top scorer in the World Cup, while Messi brilliantly led Argentina to the Cup and was named the best player of the tournament. This model has mostly disappeared since PSG's takeover, but they are not the only culprits. Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, who missed the Qatar 2022 finals after Italy failed to qualify, said PSG players were angry at the team's decline. "We are very angry and we have to come back after this match, right after this defeat, because we don't have time to lose," Donnarumma said on the referee's website. "It was an avoidable defeat. They didn't have many chances, but we have to do more than that. We have to learn from this game. We are very sad, but now we have to focus on the next match."
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