Paris Saint-Germain are currently fourth favourites to win the UEFA Champions League with the majority of betting agencies in the UK.
It’s a position borne out of domestic dominance in Ligue 1 and in the Coupe de France, their monstrous attacking power on display in the UCL Group Stages and their commanding 4-0 victory at the BayArena on Tuesday night.
With Zlatan Ibrahimovic stepping up, a reinforced, talented midfield and the world’s best centre-back in Thiago Silva present, what’s not to love?
Concerns over the strength of competition in France’s league are age-old; What can we truly learn when PSG regularly dish out beatings to Valenciennes, Sochaux and Nantes? They average a whopping 64.9 percent possession in Ligue 1 and have scored 58 goals from just 25 matches.
The Champions League should be the true identifier, but even then les Parisiens drew an extremely favourable group of Benfica, Anderlecht and Olympiakos. They managed a further 16 goals in the Group Stages, with Zlatan grabbing exactly half of those.
It leaves us asking how strong they are, and how legitimate their challenge in Europe is, without any tangible evidence to help answer the question.
There’s no doubt their defence is solid, with Silva leading a line accommodating once-in-a-lifetime talent Marquinhos, the underrated Maxwell and the developing Gregory van der Wiel.
No concerns exist in midfield either, with Thiago Motta in the form of his life as an anchor, Blaise Matuidi looking close to elite and Marco Verratti and Yohan Cabaye fighting for the third spot.
The 4-3-3 Laurent Blanc has produced is possession-heavy and a little dull at times, but it’s a modern formation that translates extremely well to the European stage—no Juventus-esque concerns exist for the capital outfit.
Ironically, it’s their star-studded attacking trio—you know, the one that scored all those goals—that falls under the most scrutiny, and the reason why is primarily the Edinson Cavani-Lucas Moura-Ezequiel Lavezzi tussle.
Zlatan plays as a central striker, but who flanks him? Cavani has taken the primary role as a right forward this season and has an excellent scoring record so far: 17 goals from 22 starts is good value for the €63 million man.
Lavezzi dominates the left flank, but he can be a little streaky at times and has kicked up a few fusses this season. Lucas is in play for the right-sided role, but his costly decision-making in the final third hurts his stock and he never gets the chance to string a run of games together—something vital if he is to improve in this key area.
The job of a manager is to craft a well-balanced formation, not shoe-horn the 11 best players you have into a shape that looks vaguely proper and current. On paper there’s no question Lucas is the better RF fit for a 4-3-3, but that’s the only position Blanc can use to accommodate Cavani in.
The balance, in truth, is a little off, but we haven’t seen how this effects the side’s fortunes on the biggest stage yet because PSG are yet to come up against a top-tier side.
Will Cavani’s unnatural role on the right be stumped against the bigger, better teams? He’s given PSG good production, but it feels a lot like the triumph of individual brilliance rather than systematic victory.
The presence of Lucas on the right, sticking wider than Cavani, may have a knock-on effect too; Van der Wiel’s roaming role could be stunted or curtailed somewhat.
We play the waiting game with PSG for now; no one can confidently suggest just how well they will stack up against Europe’s fellow elite sides.
