Puzzling PSG still a work in progress
Reuters - Sunday 25 November 2012, 11:20
Paris Saint-Germain trounced Troyes 4-0 on Saturday but there were still boos at the Parc des Princes as the Ligue 1 leaders once again failed to take charge of the game.
PSG, who had not won for three league matches, were booed by the crowd when they reached halftime with only a one-goal advantage after Maxwell had benefited from a brilliant Zlatan Ibrahimovic run to open the scoring.
The home side, however, were far from brilliant, surrendering possession to second-from-bottom Troyes and allowing the visitors to take control.
"It is bizarre but the fans do what they want," keeper Salvatore Sirigu told reporters.
"But we cannot attack all the time. We are not Barca."
Coach Carlo Ancelotti said the performance was as planned as PSG tried to spare their energy having played in the Champions League at Dynamo Kiev earlier in the week.
"We were not planning to play too high [on the pitch] because we had played on Wednesday and returned only on Thursday," the Italian told reporters.
"It's not enough [recuperation] to have enough energy. That is why we opted to bank on counter-attacks. It was planned. I did not want the team to put too much intensity into the game."
While not spectacular, especially for a club who spent over 200 million euros on transfers since being taken over by Qatar investors last year, the method paid off.
PSG relied on Ibrahimovic, who was back from a two-match suspension to score his 11th and 12th league goals from 11 appearances and set up his sixth and seventh goals in his last three games in all competitions.
The Sweden striker set up Blaise Matuidi for the second goal and netted the other two himself, once again showing he is a class above the rest in the French league.
"Ibra is the most important element in the team," Ancelotti said, stating the obvious.
"But we must not think we can always rely on him to win matches. There should be a team behind him."
If midfielder Matuidi produced another very solid performance and Argentine forward Ezequiel Lavezzi confirmed he was back to his brilliant Napoli self, Javier Pastore once more showed he had no place in the starting line-up.
"He must continue to work to improve his fitness," Ancelotti said of the Argentine who joined in 2011 for a 42 million euro transfer fee from Palermo.
"We don't have yet the playing identity which will give us continuity in the results," added Ancelotti.