NeeQooL

🚨 Arsene Wenger on claims PSG have an unfair Champions League advantage because they can rest players in Ligue 1: “I find this argument quite amusing because I remember when people used to say exactly the opposite about Paris Saint-Germain. For years, whenever PSG were eliminated from the Champions League, people would tell you, ‘Well, of course. They play in France. They don’t face enough competition.’ They would say the players had won the league too early, that they weren’t being tested every weekend, that they arrived in Europe without the intensity or quality required to compete against the best teams. I remember hearing it so often that you could almost predict the analysis before the match had finished. Now PSG are winning in Europe, and suddenly playing in France has become their greatest advantage. So which one is it? You cannot tell me for 10 years that Ligue 1 quality is the reason PSG cannot win the Champions League, and then tell me Ligue 1 is the reason they are winning it. At some point, perhaps we should discuss the football. Of course, having the opportunity to rotate players is useful. Every manager would welcome that. But resting a player does not teach him how to escape a press. It does not teach your defenders where to position themselves. It does not make eleven players understand exactly when to move and when to stay. Those things require work. Imagine you’re a manager preparing to face Manchester City. You tell your players, ‘Listen, PSG have rested their best players at the weekend.’ One of them asks, ‘Okay, boss. But what do we do when Vitinha receives the ball between our midfielders?’ What do you tell him? ‘Don’t worry, he’s well rested’? That isn’t a tactical solution. Another player asks, ‘And when Dembele comes inside and Hakimi runs beyond him?’ Again, what is your answer? Because the problem isn’t that these players have slept for eight hours instead of six. The problem is that they know exactly what they’re doing. I watched PSG tonight and what impressed me wasn’t simply their energy. It was the understanding between the players. One moves, another recognises the space, a third is already preparing for the next pass. That doesn’t come from having an easy Saturday afternoon against a smaller French club. It comes from training, coaching and repetition. And I think people are forgetting something important about Manchester City. This is a very good team. They went to Anfield and beat Liverpool 3-0 just a few days ago. You don’t suddenly become incapable of playing football because your opponents had an opportunity to rotate their squad. PSG are making excellent players uncomfortable. That’s the difference. If I were Luis Enrique, I would almost enjoy listening to these explanations. Because imagine spending months working on your team, improving the movement, the pressing, the discipline, and then somebody says, ‘They’re only winning because they don’t have to play their best players every weekend.’ You would probably look at your assistants and ask, ‘So what have we been doing in training all this time?’ I have great respect for French football. I know its difficulties, and I know its qualities. But the league didn’t suddenly change because PSG started winning European trophies. What changed was PSG. And perhaps it’s time people gave Luis Enrique and his players credit for that, instead of searching for a new explanation every time they beat somebody.”