On Wednesday at the Parc des Princes, Paris Saint-Germain defeated Manchester City 4-2 on matchday 7 of the Champions League 2024-2025 league phase (video summary PSG/Manchester City). Jamie Carragher, former player and now CBS Sports consultant, had some scathing words to say about the Citizens’ performance.
Carragher “The first half felt like a jubilee and the second half felt like one of the best halves in soccer”
“It was like two completely different soccer matches. The first half felt like a jubilee and the second half like one of the best halves of soccer we’ve seen in the Champions League group stage.
Carragher “It felt like their best team was up at the end”.
As soon as PSG made the substitutions, especially with Dembélé, it felt like… Thierry (Henry, former France striker, also a CBS Sports consultant) mentioned before the game that the team Luis Enrique started with looked a bit strange. It felt like their best team was in place at the end.
Carragher “They were absolutely manhandled in that second half”
Manchester City – as we know in the Premier League and sometimes in this Champions League group stage – can’t cope when the intensity of a game is too much for them, the physicality. They were absolutely battered in that second half, it was men against boys. They were lucky to concede just four goals in the end. It could have been worse.
It’s rare to see so many positive messages about PSG. Usually, this team is widely criticized, even when it wins. At least, that’s what the consultants/journalists often say. Opponents, on the other hand, praise PSG’s quality. We saw in this match that the concentrated Parisians had far exceeded the level expected for such a match.
Make no mistake about it, if this match is a benchmark, most of PSG’s matches have been marked by this kind of clear-cut domination… except for the most important one, the result. PSG had never managed to win a match like that this season and last season, and that’s the only notable change.
Because we saw that this team, perfectly directed tactically, had put in the technical ingredients to hurt their opponents. We’ll take the praise, but it has to give us strength and continuity for the future. We still have some work to do to get through this first phase of the Champions League. With PSG so strong, Stuttgart will be no more than a formality, but every match is different and the Parisians will need to get back into the swing of things quickly, and above all not think they’re too high, too fast.
