Although AS Monaco put in a valiant effort against the mighty Paris Saint-Germain under the eyes of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, they ultimately succumbed 2-0 to PSG, who capitalised on some untimely mistakes from Les Monegasques.
The Match
Starting the game brilliantly, the away team were unlucky not to take the lead when Sofiane Diop struck the woodwork. Shortly after, Kylian Mbappe converted a penalty to instead give the Parisian giants the lead after Djibril Sidibe brought down Angel Di Maria.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men then doubled their advantage just before the interval through Mbappe, as PSG quickly pounced on Youssouf Fofana’s sloppy pass to then surge upfield and score against a shorthanded Monaco backline.
Unable to produce a second half comeback, the result ended Monaco’s eight game unbeaten streak, in a match where they were left to rue their avoidable missteps.
Disasi’s Debrief
Axel Disasi summed up the match aptly when speaking afterwards saying: “The result is quite harsh. In the first half, we had a lot of control. We managed to press, to recover high, while obtaining situations. But against this kind of opponent, mistakes pay for themselves. The second goal before the break hurt us. In the second half, we stopped playing. That was a shame.”
Notable Statistics
Despite firing off more shots (13 to 9), creating more chances (11 to 7), having more corners (6 to 1) and making more tackles (26 to 13), it just wasn’t Monaco’s night even if positives could be extracted from their accomplished first half showing.
Rare Week Off
With no game until next weekend in the French Cup against Red Star, Niko Kovac will be eager to use this time to regroup the troops, work on some things in training and give his players some extra rest so they can be primed to come out firing and return to winning ways.