Stan Collymore has urged Paris Saint-Germain and French media to ‘stop crying’ over the manner of their defeat to Liverpool on Wednesday night.
Despite dominating at the Parc des Princes and having 27 shots to the visitors’ two, Luis Enrique’s side lost 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League round-of-16 clash in midweek, with some of the PSG players and management not exactly gracious afterwards.
Vitinha bullishly declared that his side are ‘going to win’ at Anfield on Tuesday, while his coach bemoaned that they ‘deserved more’ and that ‘football can be unfair at times’.
Meanwhile, the notoriously critical French newspaper L’Equipe described Liverpool’s win as an ‘English heist’ and gave unforgiving 3/10 player ratings to Mo Salah and Andy Robertson (via Daily Mail).
Collymore tells PSG to ‘stop crying’
In his latest column for CaughtOffside, Collymore insisted that PSG must lick their wounds and focus on the task in hand at Anfield, rather than wallowing in self-pity and bitterness.
The former Reds striker wrote: “L’Equipe is obviously a very well-respected newspaper, and they gave very low rankings to the Liverpool players. I think there is a little bit of saltiness there.
“PSG have tried so hard over the last 10 years to become a Champions League-winning team, and they haven’t got there. Now the time that they are a little more humble and organic, they couldn’t seal the deal at home with that performance.”
Collymore continued: “The reality now for PSG is that they can’t have any excuses at Anfield. Their players, coaching staff, as well as the French media and pundits, they need to stop crying and go to Anfield and be more clinical in front of goal.
“If they do that, and also keep a clean sheet, they have every chance of turning it around. But I think if they spent the next week crying over the first leg, they will approach the second leg in the same way, and Liverpool would take advantage of that.”
PSG can only blame themselves for not winning first leg
After what happened to Liverpool against Real Madrid in the 2022 Champions League final, we can empathise with how sickening Wednesday’s defeat must’ve been for PSG, and Arne Slot was honest enough to admit that his team were ‘really lucky’ to have won in Paris.
However, as Collymore says, Enrique’s side have only themselves (and a goalkeeping masterclass from Alisson) to blame for not winning the first leg comfortably, and a performance of a similar standard at Anfield could yet see them overturn the one-goal deficit.
The Reds mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking that the hard work is done by winning the away fixture. They only need to look back at last year’s Europa League quarter-final against Atalanta for a reminder as to what high-quality visiting teams can do to us if we’re below par.
Liverpool have the advantage in the tie and are good enough to capitalise on that at home if they perform to the levels we know they can reach. An onslaught from PSG should be expected, but if we can score the first goal relatively early on Tuesday, hopefully that might deflate the bruised Ligue 1 outfit even more.
