Paris Saint-Germain manager Luis Enrique said on Monday that his team have put themselves in a “difficult” spot with a slow start to their Champions League campaign, adding it won’t get any easier as they travel to the Allianz Arena to play Bayern Munich on Tuesday.
PSG are languishing just under the play-off section of the Champions League standings in 25th, having won one and lost two of their four matches to date. Bayern are 17th with two wins and two losses.
“It’s obvious that after four matches, including three at the Parc des Princes, with fair or unfair results, unfair for me, we have to have good results to qualify,” Luis Enrique told a press conference on Monday. “We made things difficult for ourselves. Football is what it is. You have to score.
“We will give it our all, we will be brave, we will take risks, as we usually do.”
Bayern have won their last three games against PSG in the Champions League, with the French side failing to score in any of the matches.
Luis Enrique admitted that it would be a tough game and that his side needs to perform above and beyond.
“It is very clear that we are two teams that are similar. We want to have the ball, we press very high…we have similar statistics,” the former Barcelona coach said. “We are among the best teams with goal chances, but there will only be one ball. And so one team will have to suffer. Them, or us.
“We’ll probably have to go further against Bayern. Run more, raise the level, especially against Bayern at home.”
Despite PSG’s stuttering start, though, Bayern will take nothing for granted going into a game against a team with a plethora of talent, the Bavarians’ head coach Vincent Kompany said on Monday.
“We are playing against one of the big clubs in Europe. They have a lot of individual quality and a very good coach. Both teams will want to win. We are playing at home and this match is of utmost importance to us,” Kompany told reporters on Monday.
“It’s [PSG] a squad with incredible talent. The spaces between the lines are never big, the pressing is very aggressive and good. When they have the ball, they have a clear attacking approach. As a team, they are really very good.”
While the German giants have lost two of their four Champions League matches this season, they are undefeated in the Bundesliga and have not conceded a goal in five consecutive league games, but Kompany is striving for more.
“There are many teams in the competition [Champions League] that we haven’t seen yet. We often talk about finishing in the top eight [to qualify for the last 16]. Our goal is to finish top one,” Kompany added.
Bayern are without 20-year-old Germany defensive midfielder Aleksandar Pavlovic, who broke his collarbone in October.
One man who is feeling fit and raring to go is striker Harry Kane, who has scored 50 Bundesliga goals since joining from Tottenham Hotspur in August last year, needing just 43 games to reach that mark, faster than any player in the league’s history.
“It has been a long time since I felt as good as I do now,” the 31-year-old England captain said. “As an experienced player, you learn a lot about different phases in a game.
“Since I’ve been at Bayern, my numbers have gone up. I hope that this continues and that we can keep raising our standards.
“Without the players around me, all of the goals I score would not be possible. They create space.
“We have a lot of competition for different positions, a lot of quality and a high tempo. Sometimes I also drop deeper to give my teammates more space. We get on very well.”
Information from Reuters was used in this story.
