Football Daily | PSG survive Anfield white-knuckle ride to show they are bottlers no more

6 hours ago 1

OOH LA LA

Following last week’s smash-and-grab victory by Liverpool at the Parc des Princes, Football Daily’s expected fun (xF) threshold going into Tuesday night’s second leg at Anfield was extremely high but caveated by several questions. Would Paris Saint-Germain be able to play as well again? Was there any chance Liverpool could be as bad? After Alisson’s heroics in the French capital, would he again be called upon to singlehandedly repel PSG’s attacking hordes? And while it’s OK for PSG fans to finally like Luis Enrique’s exciting team of apparently ego-free young whippersnappers, is it OK for neutrals who disapprove of nation states buying up football clubs in blatant attempts at image-laundering to row in behind them as well? And the answers … Not quite. No, up to a point once it got to penalties. And probably not but they’re so much fun to watch.

While Football Daily was probably not alone in thinking PSG had left their chances of winning this tie behind them in Paris, Luis Enrique’s side survived an early buffeting at Anfield before restoring parity in the tie when Ousmane Dembélé showed more hurdling prowess than both high-profile fallers in the big race on day one at Cheltenham, leaping over Alisson and slotting into an empty net. A pulsating, thoroughly absorbing game eventually went to penalties and on this occasion it was the Brazilian goalkeeper’s opposite number, Gigi Donnarumma, who took the post-match plaudits by saving from Darwin Núñez and Curtis Jones, whose manager’s candour in effusively praising the game, despite its outcome, came as something of a pleasant surprise.

“That was the best game of football I’ve ever been involved in,” gasped Arne Slot, as several of his players shed salty tears. “Two teams of an incredible level and intensity, it was unbelievable what we showed in the first 25 minutes. Over 90 minutes I don’t think we deserved to lose. Over 180 minutes maybe it was deserved that it went to overtime and in overtime I thought maybe PSG were better than us. Then it comes down to penalties and they scored four.” Of course, as is customary when a Big Dawg crashes out of Bigger Cup somewhat unexpectedly, the punditocracy invariably looks for a scapegoat over whom to point their Big Finger O’Blame, which is bad news for a certain Uruguayan who might have missed his spot-kick with almost monotonous predictability, but at least played a crucial role in the scoring of his side’s first-leg goal.

Like Slot, the majority of Liverpool’s fans seem happy enough to concede they were beaten fairly and squarely by a good team hitting its stride across two legs, although they might not be so magnanimous if they weren’t 15 points clear in the Premier League. “Either of the two teams could have gone through,” added Luis Enrique. “We both deserved to go through but we deserved it slightly more, especially in the first game. We showed what sort of team we are. We have huge strength of character, personality, and we are a team who go out to play [our] own football.” That this style is in stark contrast to that of the b@ntz era big-name bottlers of PSG under predecessors who must have felt like they were trying to mind egomaniacal mice at a crossroads, is a testament to the managerial prowess of the extremely likable Spaniard at their helm.

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Join Scott Murray at 8pm (all times GMT) for updates on Atlético 3-2 Real Madrid (agg: 4-4 agg, 4-5 pens) in the second leg of their last-16 Bigger Cup tie, while Will Unwin will helm our Wednesday night clockwatch, featuring Arsenal 3-1 PSV (agg: 10-2) and Aston Villa 2-1 Club Brugge (agg: 5-2).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

We’re going into eight weeks of your life now where you sacrifice everything – you’re not shopping tomorrow, you’re not bowling, your diet’s good … if your wife or girlfriend wants to go shopping, wants to do that, they have to make the sacrifices, it’s a massive sacrifice for us to achieve something because you can’t now go to Bluewater tomorrow walking around high-fiving and going Costa Coffee when you should be resting and all those things, now we have to be at it, now the professional has to be paramount, and everyone’s sacrificing, everyone’s family is sacrificing for the greater good if you like” – Nathan Jones does not appear to have become any less rambling or entertainingly intense since joining Charlton. A 1-0 win at Crawley leaves them fourth in League One.

Re: Stuart Pearce (yesterday’s Quote of the Day). From the man who walked away from a collision with a dustcart (at Newcastle) and tried to run off a broken leg (West Ham), I’m surprised the word ‘pain’ is in his vocabulary” – Paul Griffin.

Re: yesterday’s Football Daily. The proposed New Trafford Enormodome has three pylons, spires, or whatever you call them that are apparently inspired by the devil’s trident on the club badge. Are these the only three points home fans are guaranteed to see?” – Derek McGee.

Since you’re using the wisdom of Sebastian Coe to explain the rationale of Big Sir Jim’s Big Tent, does this mean New Old Trafford will host two games and then lie idle until West Ham move in on a peppercorn rent?” – Declan Hackett.

I know I will definitely not be the first of 1,057 readers to congratulate Ed Taylor on trying again and successfully winning letter of the day yesterday with exactly the same letter as he sent in for publication on Wednesday 5 March that didn’t. The only thing less surprising than a c0ck-up [intentional reader-baiting, no? – Football Daily Ed] with a tea-time email was Alan Shearer still not understanding the new offside law change as evidenced in his commentary on Liverpool v PSG” – Andy Morrison (and 1,056 others).

Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Declan Hackett. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.