Just goes to show stars dont make a team... lots of work to do for PSG... and Poch needs to prove himself, not convincing at all his PSG time, failed to win the league and now this showing lol?

Mbappe went out, but still, it showed the problems PSG have. All of a sudden they feel pretty far from being the CL favourites

Huge fan of Pochettino but what an awful game plan and team selection. Unbalanced team and weird substitutions.

In all honesty there is a tonne of deadwood in this QSG team. Guys like Ander Herrera, Draxler are bang on average and no good if you want to win the CL. I must say Icardi also has been on a continuous decline since moving to Doha after having those shenanigans at Inter. What a waste of talent ruined by consistent wrong off the pitch choices.

It's September lol.  You literally can't tell a single thing until December about what a team is about.

So the front 3 have literally played 45 minutes together. No Verratti. No Di Maria. Ramos would help too. And Mendes will start as the LB very soon. Not to mention Neymar showed up 10kg heavy to training camp.

There's a lot to work out here. It will take a few months.

PSG is 5 games into the season scoring 16 goals in Ligue 1. I dare say there is some sort of identity happening. Enough to score more than 1 goal vs Club Brugge.

Honestly, I think this is a case of these guys simply underestimated Brugge (to which, yeah I don't blame them) and they never fully got going.

Completely different setup though Doc. No Neymar and no Messi. Those 5 games were played with Mbappe as the CF, A midfield of Gueye, Herrera and Wijnaldum. Draxler playing as a forward. Etc.

This was an entirely new team for this game in terms of tactics.

Won't take this PSG result seriously. First time these players all play together and finding balance with all the stars will be hard. It took MSN a bit of time to get going as well.

South Americans made their debut appearence this season too. Also I just saw the highlights why tf does Neymar look fat as fuck? He genuinely looks like 2010 Ronaldinho.

Nah PSG is playing this right. Form doesnt really matter until like feburary or march anyway. During Madrids 3 peat we never looked good until the second half of the season. 2017 team was the only team to actually put a full season together

Clutch wrote:Nah PSG is playing this right. Form doesnt really matter until like feburary or march anyway. During Madrids 3 peat we never looked good

FIFY

Cant take much from the 25 minutes of this game I saw.

But of course my opinion hasnt changed. I dont know how PSG plans on defending effectively.

It is all well and good, when they have time to set up and get behind the ball. But those moments of transition, if they cannot win the ball quickly and are forced to run back I can only see trouble with 3 players who just aren't going to impact that side of the game.

Poch is an idiot if he thinks he can defend in a 4-3-3 with only 7 players with MNM staying high up the pitch.

Messi doesn't have the legs to defend as a RW so it's either shift to a 4-4-2 in defense where him and Mbappe/Neymar are the first line and the other joins with the midfield to make a midfield 4.

I think he'll probably shift to a 3-4-3. In that case they'd have to defend in a 5-4-1. Neymar and Mbappe would have to tuck in next to the pivot, but if they didn't defend deep for 3-4 years will they now?

They'd need a stern coach to get them to do so. Not sure if Poch is that guy. He comes off as kind of sawft to me. We'll see though. Still early days. Like Clutch said most CL winners don't dominante until the second half of the season and usually start slow. Liverpool in 2019 and Madrid in 2017 the exceptions since 2014.

Poch has until February to find that balance. If he doesn't Zidane is waiting outside the door.

Club de brug played a very intense game. It was thoroughly enjoyable. PSG is lucky not to lose it. For some reason, all of their players were shaky, made a lot of wrong pass, lost the ball way too easily in the dangerous area. Neymar was losing head as usual in the end and Messi walking all the pitch other than creating a few trademark running. I agree this team will do better after playing together couple of games. But PSG's defence is surely vulnerable. Now next game vs City will be interesting, with two side that are not known for their defensive tasks.
Ohh and Mendez is so fast. now they have two SRBs (solid rocket booster)

Cas and Dani:

Which teams do u think look at the favourites for the CL atm? And which would be your guess to be the eventual winner?

BarcaLearning wrote:Cas and Dani:

Which teams do u think look at the favourites for the CL atm? And which would be your guess to be the eventual winner?

Just saw this.

I don't know it's hard to say. You can't really tell who's favorites for the CL until the R16 or so. Would anyone have thought in September last year that Lampard's Chelsea would win? Or two years ago that Kovac's Bayern would lol?

Usually, a top team picks up form in the lead-up and it takes them all the way. As for who that top team will be well I expect the usual suspects.

I think City is a favorite. There are no away goals this year which I think will suit the big teams especially someone like Pep who's lost a lot because of that rule. However, City lacks that killer CF up front, and Guardiola is prone to making needless tactical adjustmenets.

PSG has the firepower and talent. For them its a question of finding balance. If they can make a balanced team then they become my favorites.

Then there are teams like Chelsea, Bayern, and Liverpool who I would also put up there.

These 5 are my tier 1 favorites.

It's going to be Real Madrid

Thx Cas, very much agree.

And good u mentioned the away goals rule no more, I totally forgot about it... whats the rule now then? Im so lazy Cbf turning on VPN n search all the time

1-0 PSG

Premier league experienced Idrissa Gueye with a fantastic finish.

1-0 PSG

So good to watch Messi play vs these Pep's players

Verratti makes PSG look so much better, huge difference. Mendes looking nervous on the left though.

Lmao the worst referee has found his way to stop Messi in CL.

How?

De Bruyne lucky to stay on there.

1-0 HT pretty even game so far.

GG so far, Man C really should have equalizer, unlucky, PSG counter so created so many chances. Great stuff I can tell how the star players wanna turn it on, Mbappe doing some flashy stuff

Can't believe Messi is just out here gasping for air and loafing off Mbappe's hardwork play the guy in Ligue 1 games so he can recover his conditioning

Neymar probably gave him the inside scoop: 'Mbappe does all the headless chicken running in this team, the rest of us just feed off it'

Tbf Neymar has been very hard working lately and in this game also, see him deny Mahrez in his own box too ffs Often those are exagerrations n just false accusations, these players work hard, at least in these big games

Mbappe is too selfish, and they try to play from him too much which brakes the dynamic. At 25 min Messi was asking the ball, but it didn't come to him after that, probably got annoyed.