Julien Laurent

with an injury that we thought was not too serious and actually is dragging on a bit and he's not even sure to be there for the first leg let alone maybe even the second leg of that Chelsea clash so without Ruiz you've got Zairem Ribe that means moving Neves to the left hand side that means Hakimi is not as covered probably than when Neves is there so it makes the PSG midfield

more vulnerable than when Ruiz is there with the other two Portuguese players.

And that for me has been the biggest problem this season.

Yes, they're a bit tired probably.

They finished very late with the Club World Cup and they've had injuries too.

But it's how dominant they were in midfield that they're not anymore.

And that was a big reason why they were so good collectively as well.

And if you take that away from them,

The rest is a little bit more difficult.

So I agree with you, they can still raise the level, of course.

And I think Luis Enriquez said that after the win against Monaco, the qualification against Monaco.

But the Ruiz absence is a big, big one.

Yeah, I think Luis Enrique today, I think probably for the first time, kind of hinted into it.

He said, listen, we had... When you mentioned the Champions League final, by the way, after that we had an international break, remember, with the Nations League.

So a lot of the PSG players then went with the national team, then went to the US for the Club World Cup, then had a week off, and then went straight into the European Super Cup against Spurs in Bergamo, or in Oudiné, and that was it.

And after that...

You go along and you try to manage the minutes and the fitness of each player and you lose players to injury.

I don't think it's an excuse.

It's just the reality.

It's the same for Chelsea.