AP, Paris :
A season which started with 14 straight league wins is ending in a calamitous manner for Paris Saint-Germain.
While the French league title has already been secured, a string of glaring individual errors, poor defending at set pieces and a lack of determination have seen PSG win just once in six games and concede 16 goals, including 11 in three straight away defeats. “We’re making individual mistakes, and big ones,” coach Thomas Tuchel said. “We’re used to being the best team.” Hired to bring Champions League success to the club, Tuchel instead finds himself mired in a domestic crisis. Lille scored five against PSG , while Montpellier won 3-2 on Tuesday and Nantes previously netted three . Rennes overcame a 2-0 deficit to win the French Cup last weekend on penalties. Never in the eight years since Qatari investors QSI took over has the club experienced such a bad run.
Having already won the league, PSG in theory has nothing left to play for in the last four games, starting with Nice at home on Saturday. Yet the growing feeling is that these games will go a long way to defining what happens next season.
While Tuchel has used the safe argument that he’s had to cope with too many injuries, some players seem to have had enough.
Using an expletive to describe his side’s current form, center half Marquinhos – PSG’s only player to face the media after the Montpellier game – delivered a broadside.
“If we keep losing games what’s going to happen after?” he said. “We’ll take slaps from all sides, from the fans, from the media. We’ll just prove them right.” While Tuchel has mostly refrained from criticizing the slack attitude of his players, Marquinhos is in no doubt that is where the problem lies.
