Solid leader of the Championship, PSG approaches its trip to Clermont with many absentees. For their part, the Auvergnats are also diminished.
For a month, PSG has been dragging a form of spleen and has approached its matches without a guideline or enthusiasm. Since the painful elimination in the round of 16 of the Champions League, the Parisian club has lost the compass of its season and must refocus on its minimum objective, to regain the national title, abandoned last season in Lille. If the case is well underway with still twelve points ahead of its Marseille runner-up, the Parisian dynamic has stalled. If at home, el PSG shows no sign of weakness, it has been almost two months since it has brought back the victory from a trip, accusing 4 consecutive losses in all competitions, including three in Ligue 1 (in Nantes, Lille and Monaco). So many slaps that have eroded the statue of the Parisian commander. And as if that were not enough, the workforce is cracking. Indeed, no less than eight players will be missing this weekend, including captain Marquinhos, more feverish than ever since Madrid, but also Draxler, operated on the meniscus and absent for several weeks, Keylor Navas or Angel Di Maria. Not enough to worry Mauricio Pochettino and his staff who can count on his star trio and above all an incandescent Kylian Mbappé, author of a double and three assists last week against Lorient (5-1).
Gastien: “We can consider disturbing them”
He and his friends Neymar and Messi are a big problem as confirmed by Pascal Gastien. “Put something in place against Mbappé, Messi, Neymar, it’s not easy. I hope we don’t watch them play”, explains the Clermont coach. However, the latter does not go away defeated. The technician has carefully studied the latest Parisians who have fallen and knows that it is possible to come and disturb them, provided you come and get them and deprive them of time. “We know that if we start the match well, we can consider disturbing them a little”, he believes. His team will also have to guard against the mistakes that have plagued their last matches and show an esprit de corps in the absence of several executives from the group (Houtondji, Nsimba, Hamel, Rashani, Allevinah and Abdul Samed). A challenge when you remember that in the first leg, the promoted Clermont had exploded when he came to the Park (0-4), interrupting his good start to the season. “In the first leg (0-4), we had put in place something coherent except that we had made big mistakes. We had not done everything necessary to be really likely to take points against them. The context of Saturday’s match is different. The match is going to be different. We need to take points.”, says Gastien. And if possible three in order to drop Saint-Etienne, pulverized by Lorient the day before (2-6) and pick up the Bretons and Troyes. An emergency that will make the task more complicated for Parisians in search of benchmarks and going, a week before the reception of OM for the shock of Ligue 1.
The meeting of the 31st day between Clermont and PSG will start at 9 p.m., at the Gabriel-Montpied stadium in Auvergne.
The match between Clermont and PSG, counting for the 31th Ligue 1 day, will be broadcast exclusively on Canal+Décalé, from 9 p.m.
The meeting between Pascal Gastien’s Clermont and Mauricio Pochettino’s PSG will be available for streaming on the MyCanal platform.
BetClic: Clermont: 7.65 / Draw: 5.50 / PSG: 1.32
Bwin: Clermont: 7.75 / Draw: 5.25 / PSG: 1.31
Winamax: Clermont: 8.75 / Draw: 5.80 / PSG: 1.32
Clermont: Djoco – Zedadka, Billong, Ogier (c), Seidu – Gastien, Magnin, Khaoui – Dossou, Da Cunha, Bayot.
PSG: Donnarumma – Hakimi, Ramos, Kimpembe (c), Nuno Mendes – Danilo, Gueye, Verratti – Messi, Neymar, Mbappé.