Ligue 1: Spirited AS Monaco fall to clinical PSG
Despite posing many problems and controlling large chunks of their match with Paris Saint-Germain, AS Monaco ultimately fell 5-2 to the clinical and immensely talented league leaders.
The Match
Setting up his team in his preferred 3-2-4-1 shape for this colossal Ligue 1 encounter, the key selections by Adi Hutter came in the form of starting Vanderson on his return from injury and bringing Mohamed Camara in for the suspended Youssouf Fofana.
Advertising
This clash of the titans of French football started off in pulsating fashion, as both teams enjoyed some early efforts to test Philipp Kohn and Gianluigi Donnarumma between the posts.
Les Monegasques then thought they’d powered into the lead 15 minutes in courtesy of Vanderson only for the goal to be ruled out for an offside earlier in the passage.
PSG instead took the upper hand shortly after through Goncalo Ramos, who capitalised on an untimely spill from Kohn. Donnarumma then committed an error of his own to allow Takumi Minamino to smartly get Monaco back on level terms.
The proceeding section of the game continued to see both teams trade blows and conjure openings, before PSG began to gain an edge. The home team then made the most of their momentum, as Kylian Mbappe coolly finished from the penalty spot following Soungoutou Magassa’s foul on Ousmane Dembele.
Coming out with gusto for the second stanza full of desire to get back into the game, Minamino was extremely close to finding the back of the net, but Donnarumma denied him with a spectacular save.
ASM would then start to really dominate and monopolise possession, as they probed and pressed to find an avenue to equalise.
Frustratingly, the star-studded PSG then extended their lead when Dembele blisteringly broke away on the counter and blasted home a powerful finish past Kohn with 20 minutes on the clock.
Vitinha then added to the hurt for Monaco, for the Portuguese maestro found the back of the net with an immaculately placed shot from the edge of the box.
To their credit, however, Monaco valiantly kept fighting, which led them to pulling a goal back due to Folarin Balogun, who combined power and finesse to beat Donnarumma in the 75th minute.
Not happy to settle and wanting more, Hutter’s men weren’t done yet, with them coming close to further decreasing the deficit with dangerous attempts from Wissam Ben Yedder and Denis Zakaria late on.
In the end, though, Randal Kolo Muani put a full stop on the game by scoring at the death to ensure PSG prevailed 5-2 in this hugely entertaining fixture at the Parc des Princes.
Hutter’s Debrief
“It’s easy to analyse this match, we made four mistakes which led to the opponent scoring. It’s not possible at this level and against a team of the calibre of Paris Saint-Germain,” reflected the Austrian manager.
“At certain moments, however, I had the feeling that we were at the same level as them. We can obviously lose here at the Parc des Princes, there’s no shame in that, but not by conceding five goals like that. If we want to finish in the top three, we will in any case have to limit these kinds of errors.
“For both teams, it was not easy to prepare for this meeting, because we only had one training session with the team after returning from this international break. This is not an excuse, because PSG were in the same situation. We really wanted to put in a big performance tonight. And honestly I didn’t see a big difference between Paris and us this evening, despite the fact that they were exceptional in their incision up front. We had the opportunity to come back through Takumi Minamino at 2-1, but unfortunately it didn’t work out in our favour. They scored three times in three shots after that, it’s tough. It’s a shame, because once again there wasn’t a huge gap.”
Key Stats
By the numbers, the fact ASM held the ascendancy in terms of open play expected goals (1.47 to 1.21), ground duels won (49 to 47), corners (10 to 2) and successful dribbles (13 to 10), plus were only just behind PSG in terms of total shots, shots on target, passes in the opposition half and possession, illustrated what a spirited display they produced in a game that was decided by fine margins.
Up Next
Having received praise from PSG boss Luis Enrique for their character-filled showing and held their own for large chunks against one of the elite teams in world football, Monaco can certainly extract many positives from this one despite the result, which they can focus on, while addressing their shortcomings, in order to be primed for the visit of Montpellier next weekend.