Beyond the score, favorable to PSG and good to take in these times when he had just won one of his last four league games, it is worth dwelling on this trip from Hérault. In detail, it looks like the correct operation indicated by the result. The capital club started by losing two major players, two holders, with the injuries of Kylian Mbappé then that of Sergio Ramos. 14 days from the reception of Bayern Munich and eight days from a trip to Marseille in the Coupe de France, this muscular alert for the striker will punctuate the soap opera of a daily life suspended from his state of health.
He returned to competition just after the World Cup, then took a vacation before returning for the Coupe de France and then leaving again. This stop-and-go is not good for his internal engine, his sensations and his bearings when he will have had time to miss two penalties before his exit after about twenty minutes. Losing in the same moment a striker and defender for a club which will not have succeeded in attracting either Milan Skriniar or Hakim Ziyech on the last day of the incredible transfer window seemed in the tone of an erratic start to the year 2023 for PSG.
Messi’s first goal since Qatar
With Mbappé already, at kick-off, Christophe Galtier’s team deployed according to a stereotypical tactic consisting of favoring the Montpellier axis, yet 5 behind. The funnel shot. Verdict: this is not football. No width, few crosses, a left side devastated by the replacement of the 2018 world champion. Paris terrified by an anemic game in front of a weak opponent who never knew what to do with the ball, which is all the same nerd for footballers.
The MSHC showed that they could resist, together, before breaking up in the second half at the same time as Galtier asked for more variety in the game and on the sides and Fabian Ruiz became more influential again, as in Naples, this who evades him too often. The Spaniard will have scored and managed a delicious assist for Leo Messi, author of his first goal in competition since his coronation in Qatar. The Pulga seem to be getting better and better and that’s real good news, one of the few with Warren Zaire-Emery’s first pro goal. But even at 1-0, Paris suffered a cons concluded by a strike from Stephy Mavididi captured in two stages by Gianluigi Donnarumma. Goal that he will end up taking at dusk of the meeting.
There is another question mark of the evening at La Mosson even if the problem is not new: the level of investment and technique of the substitutes. When Hugo Ekitike and Renato Sanches replaced Mbappé and Ramos, one refused to make calls when the other moved around as if sipping coffee watching passers-by in the street. It is impossible to evolve in Ligue 1 with such involvement and that is not football either. The final success does not erase all the worries of a team that is struggling to come together as if it remained a puzzle. Now, two pieces are missing, one of which is essential, its flagship striker, to scan a transformed horizon. The grayness is still there.
Match sheet
Half time: 0-0. Referee: Jérémie Pignard.
Buts. Montpellier: Nordin (89th); PSG: Ruiz (55th), Messi (72nd), Zaire-Emery (1-3, 92nd).
Warnings. Montpellier : Jullien (7th, jersey draw on Ramos). PSG: Danilo (11th, obstruction on Savanier).
Montpellier : Lecomte – Sacko (Tchato, 85th), Kouyaté, Jullien, Estève, Maouassa (Fayad, 83rd) – Savanier, Chotard (Nordin, 83rd), Leroy (Ferri, 62nd) – Germain (Faye, 62nd), Mavididi. Entr. : Piteau
PSG : Donnarumma – Hakimi, Marquinhos, Ramos (Renato Sanches, 32e), Nuno Mendes (Bernat, 69e) – Soler, Danilo, Ruiz – Vitinha (Zaïre-Emery, 69e) – Messi, Mbappé (Ekitike, 21e). Entr. : Galtier