Paris Saint-Germain hoped to ride the momentum of defeating FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 first-leg into Ligue 1 action.
However, that didn’t occur as PSG fell 2-0 to AS Monaco, who now sits two points away from PSG. Meanwhile, the capital club is four points from Lille OSC and could risk losing the Champions League competition next season.
After the match, Canal Football Club analysts Pierre Ménès criticized Mauricio Pochettino for his starting eleven and not starting Marco Verratti, who would eventually come in and play 35 minutes.
“If I praise Kovac’s coaching, I’m not going to praise Pochettino’s coaching. If Verratti can enter in the 55th minute, we must stop taking us for idiots, that means he can start,” Ménès said.
“I think that if you have Verratti at the start of the match, the midfielder has another binder, you still manage to find better your attackers who, there, have managed, or not, alone. You bring in Rafinha and Verratti at 0-2. He was excellent on Wednesday, but he failed this (Sunday) evening.”
Pochettino did state in his press conference that he decided to leave Verratti off the starting eleven for precautionary reasons.
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