Editorial – PSG haven’t lost their football, just their certainty | OneFootball

Four official matches, no wins. A defeat against Lens in the Trophée des Champions, two draws against Rennes and Lille, then a loss at the Parc des Princes to Monaco. For a PSG side that are reigning double European champions, the start inevitably looks bad. And yet, the numbers tell a far less catastrophic story than the results do. Paris still monopolize the ball, pin their opponents back around their own box, and keep creating attacking situations. But something has jammed at the very moment matches are supposed to turn. The actions look less natural, the choices less obvious, and the forwards less decisive. What if, behind Paris’s lack of sharpness, the first real problem is simply confidence?

PSG still dominate, but they are no longer hurting teams enough

92 touches in the box, no wins

The result against Monaco could almost sum everything up on its own. Paris had 23 shots to Monaco’s four. Ten PSG efforts were on target, compared with two for ASM. Possession went beyond 68%, while Monaco did not even win a corner.

And yet, at the final whistle, the scoreboard read 1-2. A statistic published by Paris Stats Germain pushes the paradox even further: PSG had 40 touches in the opposition box against Monaco, compared with just eight for their opponent. Across the matches included in that stat, Paris now total 92 against 35 for their opponents. The result: no wins.

That is probably the most reassuring and the most frustrating thing at the same time. PSG do not seem to have lost their ability to move forward, unbalance a block, or reach the final third. The ball still gets into the areas Luis Enrique wants it to reach, but getting there is not enough.

One extra touch, a delayed pass, an imperfect first control, or a poorly chosen shot can turn a dangerous situation into nothing more than a line on a stats sheet. Paris’s problem right now lies more in what they do with that dominance than in the dominance itself.

When confidence disappears, clarity goes with it

The half-second that changes an attack

Confidence remains difficult to measure. It appears neither in advanced stats nor on data charts, but it profoundly changes the way a forward plays. When a player is full of confidence, he anticipates. He almost knows before receiving the ball whether he should shoot, beat his man, or pick out a teammate. Everything seems instinctive. In a tougher spell, the exact same situation can cause hesitation: one extra touch, one extra glance at goal, a pass made after the window has already closed. At this level, a few tenths of a second are enough to turn a potential chance into a broken-down attack.

That is probably what currently creates this impression of a lack of cohesion in the final third. Paris can put together a remarkable sequence to play through two defensive lines before the move suddenly slows near the box. It is not necessarily that the collective principles have disappeared; they are simply being executed with less certainty. It can also lead to a kind of individualism that has nothing to do with attitude.

When a forward has not scored for several matches, he may want to finish a move that he would previously have kept alive. When a team are winning easily, everyone knows another chance will come. When they are chasing a win, every ball can start to feel like the one they absolutely cannot let go. The search for confidence can then sometimes produce the opposite effect: rushing things, poor decisions, and fresh frustration.

Marquinhos and Vitinha are scoring: where are the forwards?

A paradox that says a lot

The five goals scored by Paris in the first three Ligue 1 matchdays are particularly revealing. Ferran Torres scored both goals in the draw at Rennes. In Lille, Vitinha and then Marquinhos salvaged a point in the final minutes. Against Monaco, the Brazilian captain was once again PSG’s only scorer. So apart from Ferran, none of the forwards already established in the Paris project has scored in the league yet.

Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué, and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia have still not opened their accounts. That obviously does not mean they are all playing badly or that they have suddenly become responsible for the poor run, but when Marquinhos has as many Ligue 1 goals as all of PSG’s forwards excluding Ferran combined, the contrast is worth noting.

There is also this striking figure against Monaco: of the 40 balls touched by Paris in the opposition box, nine were by Achraf Hakimi. The full-back is naturally one of the most attack-minded players in Luis Enrique’s system, and his presence so high up the pitch is nothing unusual.

But it reinforces the current feeling: many of PSG’s dangerous situations are going through players who are not, in theory, the main ones responsible for finishing. Marquinhos is scoring, Vitinha is directly getting on the scoresheet, Hakimi keeps making runs into the box, while the attacking unit is still searching for its rhythm and, above all, the spontaneity that used to be its strength.

An attack that also needs to relearn how to speak the same language

New signings inevitably change the connections

Reducing this period to a simple individual slump would be too easy, though. Paris’s attack changed over the summer. Ferran Torres, Maghnes Akliouche, and Mika Godts are among the new faces in the forward line. Ferran already delivered with a brace in his very first league match, while the others are still discovering the specific demands of Luis Enrique’s game. That inevitably takes time, even for talented players, because PSG’s attack relies heavily on connections, rotations, and each player’s ability to read the movements of those around him.

The positions are fluid, the full-backs sometimes occupy attacking zones, and the midfielders have to instantly recognize the spaces opening up in front of them. This football becomes magnificent when everyone is thinking at the same rhythm. It looks far more laborious as soon as a run is made a second too early or a pass arrives a second too late.

The new signings need to learn those automatisms, but the established players also need to learn how to play with them. That may also be why it is important not to look for a culprit too quickly. The problem looks more like the sum of several small malfunctions than one major tactical flaw: new teammates, combinations to rebuild, forwards lacking success, and results that are gradually increasing the pressure.

Doubt also changes the way opponents behave

Paris must regain their power to intimidate

There is, lastly, a less visible effect of this poor run: the one it produces in the team facing them. When Paris string wins together and quickly convert their chances, every spell of domination becomes oppressive for the opponent. Even at 0-0, they can feel as though the goal will inevitably come.

By contrast, the more matches go by without a win, the more opponents understand that they can survive. Monaco provided the perfect illustration. Even with four shots to 23 and two on target to ten, ASM stayed in the game and made the most of their rare opportunities.

That sense of inevitability is also something Paris must win back. Doubt has a vicious mechanism: one missed chance gives the opponent a few extra minutes of hope, a second strengthens that belief even more, and Paris end up forcing their moves more and more.

The team can then become exposed, offer more value to opposition transitions, and gradually lose the sense of control that their territorial dominance should normally give them. Confidence works both ways: when it drops slightly on PSG’s side, it naturally rises among the teams facing them.

No need to panic, but no excuses either

Luis Enrique did not dramatize things after Monaco, either. The Spaniard felt his team clearly deserved more, while also acknowledging the need to improve:

That message seems quite fair in light of the content of the matches. It would be absurd to talk about a deep crisis after three Ligue 1 matchdays, especially when Paris are still producing enough to suffocate their opponents for long stretches. But it would be just as easy to assume everything will automatically return to normal simply because this team has an enormous amount of talent.

Confidence cannot be ordered back any more than it can return by decree. It is rebuilt through a forward finding the net again, through a pass played at the right moment instead of a forced shot, through a match won without needing to come from behind, or simply through a few sequences in which Dembélé, Doué, Kvaratskhelia, Ferran, Akliouche, or Godts start finding each other again without thinking.

PSG have probably not lost their football. The 92 touches in opposition boxes compared with the 35 they have allowed would actually suggest the opposite. But between reaching the danger area and becoming truly dangerous again, there is currently a gap that Paris are no longer managing to bridge often enough. Precision, spontaneity, selflessness, automatisms, and clarity all seem to be missing in turn, but behind each of those elements, there is probably one same key: confidence.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.