A Mbappe-less Paris Saint-Germain got beaten in his absence in their table-topping Ligue 1 match with Nice, as Mauricio Pochettino’s side were humiliated by a 1-0 late Andy Delort strike at Allianz Riviera.
Futballnews reports that Christophe Galtier’s hosts grabbed a breathe-taking late victory over the league leaders in the just concluded Saturday’s contest to top second place as their visitors tried to score without the France forward leading their ranks. More so, the attacker, top of the leaderboard for combined goals/assists in Ligue 1 this season, was absent as he served a one-match suspension due to the yellow card he got against Nantes last month.
Inasmuch as Les Parisiens stay comfortably entrenched at the front of the title race, 13 points clear of their rivals, they look forward to rediscovering their spark in time for next week’s Champions League clash with Real Madrid. Though, with just two shots on target all night, they could have been hard-pressed to say that they deserved a portion of the spoils, as both Neymar and Lionel Messi were unable to pick up the slack left behind by the lack of Mbappe’s presence.
On the other side, in a game low on glowing opportunities, Khephren Thuram failed to turn a neat flat pass home six yards out for the hosts in the second period, while Thilo Kehrer pushed a soft header directly to Walter Benitez off a Neymar free-kick.
However, a scintillating Angel Di Maria break disclosed that PSG would be capable of snatching a late winner – instead, they saw themselves on the wrong end of the scoreline when Delort went into the top-right corner in the 88th minute.
In addition, the visitors escaped a late penalty call from VAR due to a foul on Jordan Lotomba deep into stoppage time, although by then, it was quite late to undo the damage, condemning them to a second loss in their last three league games.
Mbappe’s absence was ultimately taken to be keenly felt as PSG downed to a third league defeat of the season, and a void controlling intelligence in the final third showed that they would have to search a little bit hard for a matching replacement should in case he leaves.
Fast forward, the 23-year-old, whose contract would come to an end this summer, stays strongly linked with a move to Real Madrid, thereby leaving Les Parisiens with the looming headache of how to offset his potential loss.
On the other news, Nice head coach Galtier has now gotten 17 points from 21 Ligue 1 games against PSG ever since QSI’s takeover in 2011-12, which is quite more than any other coach.
