Luis Enrique can no longer hide behind ‘The Project’ – PSG need wins | Luke Entwistle

When Luis Enrique speaks, there is an increasing sense of separation between discourse and reality and it has never been more evident than a week in which PSG’s shortcomings were laid bare for all to see.

A misalignment between what a football manager says, what he does, and what he is achieving is far from uncommon but Luis Enrique explores the extremities of duplicity. “We’re not far from Arsenal,” he said after the humbling 2-0 defeat at the Emirates at the start of October; all those in the stadium and watching on TV likely arrived at a different, much less flattering conclusion as far as PSG are concerned.

“Where you see doubt, I see potential, and progress,” he added later that month. But for many, and the numbers do attest, there is a feeling of regression. The defeat by Bayern Munich in midweek not only sews increasing scepticism about the “project” at PSG, it also throws their progression into the next stage of the Champions League into doubt and sees Luis Enrique inherit an unwanted record. It was his eighth defeat as a PSG manager in the Champions League in 17 games; no PSG manager has lost more and his 47% defeat ratio is unmatched.

The Spaniard’s reaction to the failure? “I like what I’m seeing. I like what I saw in Munich … everything I see in this project is interesting,” he said. “The Project” has, in many cases, become football speak for “we are not currently where we want to be” and that certainly applies to PSG. In other cases, it is a vague concept to mask shortcomings, and that perhaps applies to Luis Enrique.

For all the talk of this PSG side being “better” without Kylian Mbappé, a mantra that Luis Enrique repeated even prior to the Frenchman’s summer departure, the reality is somewhat more nuanced. PSG certainly press better and are more organised and balanced out of possession, but there are glaring deficiencies in possession.

There is a predictability about them when they have the ball and an inability to create high-quality chances against high-quality opposition. It explains why only Sturm Graz, Young Boys and Bologna have scored fewer than the reigning Ligue 1 champions in this year’s Champions League.

Randal Kolo Muani seems to be being phased out by his manager. Photograph: Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

It is a situation that makes Randal Kolo Muani’s continued omission all the more baffling but is symptomatic of Luis Enrique’s double-speak. “I think we will see the best version of Kolo Muani. When he’s at his best, he’s a very high-level player,” said the Spaniard. France’s top scorer in 2024 with six goals, Kolo Muani’s “best version” is being extracted by Didier Deschamps, not Luis Enrique. Given that the former Eintracht Frankfurt forward has played just 130 minutes of football in all competitions since the start of October, the latter has seemingly given up trying to make the €90m transfer work. It is a case of poor casting but also of poor management.

Against his former club, Nantes, Kolo Muani didn’t even come off the bench. Even with 86% possession, more than 1,000 passes and 25 shots, PSG could not beat Les Canaris, with the game ending in a 1-1 draw. RKM could have been a difference maker, but if Luis Enrique doesn’t see it that way, action should have been taken in the transfer window.

Rather than delusion, a response to PSG’s shortcomings in Europe, there was incomprehension. “It’s inexplicable. In my managerial career, I cannot explain it. We have the best chance-creations stats of my whole career in management,” said the PSG head coach, who also opted against starting Ousmane Dembélé following his red card against Bayern Munich.

“It is always a message that I want to send. My obsession is seeing players that want to fight,” responded the PSG manager when asked if Dembélé, already punished with an omission from the match against Arsenal this season, was being sanctioned once again. L’Équipe reported in the wake of the draw that Luis Enrique’s relationship with Dembélé was breaking down; it was one of several reports of unrest involving several players in Les Parisiens’ dressing room.

Ousmane Dembélé was back for the feeble draw against Nantes but is one of several players reportedly unhappy with Luis Enrique. Photograph: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images

In those reports as in the analysis of Luis Enrique’s PSG, there is a common thread – playing style: too conservative, too predictable, his players reportedly see it, observers see it too. Dominance in Ligue 1 has masked the issues, but their travails in the Champions League lay them bare, and the draw with Nantes leaves Luis Enrique with another unwanted statistic, the worst win percentage (64%) of any PSG manager since Antoine Kombouaré, his opposite number at the Parc des Princes on Saturday.

Failing to beat a side that have not won since August and who sit second-bottom of Ligue 1, there is only so much longer that Luis Enrique can hide behind vague notions of project building and “optimism”. Wins, and lots of them if you’re PSG, are the credit of football and, despite reportedly having recently extended his contract at PSG, Luis Enrique’s is now in short supply.

Talking points

Roberto De Zerbi says that his side had to overcome a “mental block”, “fear”, and “anxiety” to earn a first win at the Vélodrome since 14 September, and just their second of the season. OM have won five of their six away games but their home form has been found wanting, leading to reports that De Zerbi’s players feared playing at the Vélodrome, colloquially termed “The Volcano”, ahead of Sunday’s encounter with Monaco. “The Vélodrome is with you,” read one banner unfurled pre-match. That support lasted all but two minutes, the time between the first whistle and the first individual error of the match.

Down 1-0 at half-time and booed off, Marseille did have the fans on their side by the end with Mason Greenwood’s late penalty the difference between these two sides. It is an important result for Marseille, who not only go above Monaco and into second, albeit only on goal difference, but who have also perhaps “found the tools to play [at the Vélodrome]”, in the words of De Zerbi. It may have taken a week outside Marseille and in a “commando camp” in the countryside to do it but if OM’s home form has been remedied, it will have been a fruitful albeit drastic measure to ensure they can play in front of their own fans. “I hope that this is the start of an important story at the Vélodrome,” said De Zerbi. Only time will tell.

It has been a torrid week for Nice, who lost twice by the same 4-1 scoreline in just four days. The first came against Rangers in the Europa League, the second against Lyon on Sunday – a match in which Alexandre Lacazette netted a hat-trick. It is a patch of poor form that perhaps should not come as a surprise. Against Rangers, five players without any professional minutes were forcefully integrated into the first-team set-up; three of them got their first minutes. “I am without 12 players, and then 13 from the 15-minute mark,” complained Franck Haise post-match, referencing the early injury suffered by Youssouf Ndayishimiye. Melvin Bard also withdrew with an injury following a collision with an advertising board.

It is a crisis, one that deepened further with Mohamed-Ali Cho going off injured against Lyon, that is causing logistical problems in training. “Even with the presence of the young players, we don’t have a group of 20 to work with an opposition in a tactical way so I’ll integrate staff members on free-kicks,” revealed Haise. Former Arsenal and Monaco defender Sébastien Squillaci, part of Haise’s backroom staff, can still do the job in training, but it is a situation that calls into question Nice’s capacity to sustain a challenge for the European places and puts the work of the club’s medical department in the spotlight.