Manchester United legend Peter Schmeichel isn’t ready to hand Paris Saint-Germain the club’s first UEFA Champions League trophy in club history as the former goalkeeper has more questions than answers about the French giants.
Despite PSG winning 7-2 against Maccabi Haifa, Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, and Neymar Jr. appearing on the goal sheet, some on more than one occasion, Schmeichel has doubts about the Parisians’ defending.
While on the set of CBS Sports’ “Goalazo” show, Schmeichel pointed out why PSG’s defense is why he doesn’t consider the Ligue 1 side a serious threat to win the competition despite their attack.
“I think the problem they have also shown today, so when they’re up 4-0 all of a sudden 4-2, they need to score a lot of goals to win games, and it’s not always going to happen,” Schmeichel said on the postgame show. “I think they’re terrible defending, and that’s also because of the three front players. When you are at the stadium and you see how little they take part in defending everybody else, Bayern Munich, Man City, all those teams, it’s eleven players attacking, it’s eleven players defending.
“And think in modern-day football, that’s what you need. And that, I could see, could be a problem in one game. One game against Man City and one game against Real Madrid, it’s enough to get knocked out.”
It will be up to sporting advisor Luis Campos to fix the holes on the defense as the club chief failed to land a central defender, so he is reportedly already circling two targets to jump on when the January transfer window opens.
Should Campos fix the issues on defense to start 2023, Schmeichel may change his opinion.