Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain played out a goalless draw in Ligue 1 on Sunday, and the match was more memorable for the wrong reasons than anything which took place on the pitch at Stade Velodrome.
Luan Peres (own goal) and Arkadiusz Milik had goals ruled out within the opening 20 minutes before things threatened to boil over in the stands with PSG players targeted with projectiles and later the attentions of a pitch invader.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men return to the capital with a draw which was harder earned than expected after Achraf Hakimi was dismissed for a shove on Cengiz Under which was confirmed via VAR before Benoit Bastien brandished his red card.
PSG held on as substitute Konrad de la Fuente missed a glorious chance to win it and it finished in stalemate. It’s a scoreline which will suit OM more as Jorge Sampaoli’s men will feel that they are closing the gap on their rivals given recent results.
For Les Parisiens, it was yet another example of how losing Marco Verratti to injury adversely impacts the team and that an overloaded attack of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Angel Di Maria simply does not yet work.
While Di Maria only lasted an hour before he was whisked off so that Thilo Kehrer could be introduced to shore up the defense after Hakimi’s red, Neymar got 83 minutes to create opportunities alongside Messi and Mbappe and they came away with little to show for it.
Granted, Neymar was heavily involved in Peres putting through his own net early on, yet it counted for nothing as the action was ruled out — as was Milik’s delightful finish after Boubacar Kamara brilliantly launched a lovely move.
Most of the rest of the visiting performance left a lot to be desired and it was as if PSG were holding on at times as Marseille tried to turn the screw one last time to end the near decade-long unbeaten run in Southern France enjoyed by their foes.
That record remains intact and that itself can be considered a minor positive considering that over 30 minutes with one man less in an unforgiving Velodrome atmosphere is not an easy feat, but the 57 minutes until the Morocco international was ejected were worryingly flat.
Neymar cuts a disinterested and disengaged figure at present with his best performance of the season having come on international duty with Brazil. Although he has had flashes of determination, like against Lyon at home, it is often like PSG are playing with a man down.
Losing Verratti to what appeared to be a hip issue just before halftime has the potential to hamper Pochettino and his players’ ability to raise their game given that he is truly key to PSG playing with any degree of fluency and has scarcely been available so far this season.
If the Italy international and European champion is to miss a few weeks, then there will likely be tough clashes like Lille OSC and OGC Nice at home as well as RB Leipzig and Manchester City away to navigate without him.
Arguably the main issue at present appears to be an over-emphasis on the attacking talent available and not enough of a focus on the team’s cohesion which is seeing these disjointed displays churned out week after week.
As long as the results keep coming, Pochettino has a relative margin of safety, but this was another demonstration that simply putting star attacking talent on the pitch is not enough to get those results and that is something that an increasing number of teams are starting to hammer home to PSG.
