By Leo Hewitt-Provost
Coming into this Champions League fixture, both PSG and Bayern Munich needed to rack up more points in order to progress to the knockout stages, with three important games remaining, this one was on a lot of folks’ radars, but for the Qataris and the French club, one of the best footballing institutions in the world looked miles ahead of their counterpart tonight.
And still, it was PSG who were looking to gain crucial points to join the race for the knockout stages against the Germans, but Vincent Kompany’s men proved they have what it takes to advance with just three games remaining in the league phase.
It would be difficult to argue against Bayern Munich’s squad when put against some of the top European sides in the Champions League, and the French side simply lacked any real quality going forward, leading many to believe that PSG don’t have what it takes to make the knockout stages.
Many will blame Luis Enrique’s system, to play with a 4-4-2 in the shape of a diamond against a well organised Bayern Munich side seemed complicated to begin with, but the outcome could have been much worse had Enrique picked a different formation.
Unfortunately, it did get worse for Enrique’s men as time went on, and to face a fierce Bayern Munich side at the Allianz Arena is no easy challenge to begin with. PSG forward Bradley Barcola struggled to get going all game, and his teammate Ousmane Demble – whilst he had a good input – got sent off after receiving a second yellow in the 56th minute.
Bayern Munich weren’t at their best tonight, but showed discipline and the German side’s work ethic worked in unison. Harry Kane’s first ever game against PSG will not go down as an all-time great tonight, but the marksman dropped deep to receive the ball in important moments, as he so often does for England. It proved to be the solution against a PSG side that showed good intentions in its overall play, especially defensively, but if this game wasn’t a clear indicator that PSG needed better recruitment offensively – with both an attacking midfielder and a center forward urgently needed in the squad- then Luis Henrique might find himself in a lot more trouble than he had anticipated when he took charge of the squad 16 months ago. Both fullbacks Nuno Mendes and Achraf Hakimi played a solid game, but it wasn’t enough to come back to the French capital with any points tonight.
With the whole Kylian Mbappe saga coming to an end, so did with it the amount of goals that would follow with his departure; 5 matches into the Champions League campaign now, and the sense is that Luis Enrique still hasn’t got a definite starting XI that he can rely upon, with only three goals scored in five matches in this new format.
Adding to that a clear lack of composure in front of the goal, and without a creative playmaker like Neymar dictating the middle of the park anymore, Nasser Al-Khelaifi will be scratching his head, asking for more from Luis Enrique, and he will certainly have more questions now than he did during pre-season, is this rebuild going to take longer than expected ?