French Soccer League Predictions and Discussion Thread (Ligue 1)

[Falconer]

-snip-

Finally, PSG won a friendly game and this time they were playing against Jeonbuk, however, this South Korean team was not strong enough to stand against PSG and the superstars they have but still maybe the good thing about this game was PSg finally showing good performance with Neymar, even if they didn't have Mbappe and Messi but for this game Neymar was enough to win this game and he scored one goal. Maybe Neymar is going to have a good return in the next season after the last season he lost.

Neymar has good form as one of PSG's forwards, but he has been prone to injuries each season which has forced him to be on the treatment table. That has taken a toll on his form where in the end he has been distracted form back into the squad, and I think that is the problem at PSG.

You don't have to take my word for it, but Neymar's goal stats each season says it all. Had Neymar not had so many injuries then I think he would have had better stats on that.

[Google+]

Dembele couldn't do what he wanted in Barcelona. Some simple mistakes have angered fans many times. Some players may not be able to adapt to certain teams. I don't know why, but I think Dembele will do well at PSG. His speed and dribbling ability can make him useful in PSG.

I had not read any news about this transfer before. PSG quickly transferred Dembele. I think this is a transfer success. If they had previously said they were interested in Dembele and another club had been interested in Dembele, this transfer would have been more costly.

6 seasons with Barcelona and in this transfer window Dembele officially left for Psg. Yes, this is a big surprise that happened in this transfer window because Dembele became one of the core players in the Barcelona squad who chose to go to PSG. Dembele, who was bought by Barcelona from Dortmund at a fairly high price, but his performance is not too impressive if we look at the statistics in his 6 seasons with Barcelona.

PSG have finally found a multi-talented player to support their strength in the next season. Dembele presence in Luis Enrique's squad will make their right wing even stronger in building attacks next season. Moreover, he will be a pretty good bait supplier for Asensio next season.

[temple]

-snip-

Finally, PSG won a friendly game and this time they were playing against Jeonbuk, however, this South Korean team was not strong enough to stand against PSG and the superstars they have but still maybe the good thing about this game was PSg finally showing good performance with Neymar, even if they didn't have Mbappe and Messi but for this game Neymar was enough to win this game and he scored one goal. Maybe Neymar is going to have a good return in the next season after the last season he lost.

Neymar has good form as one of PSG's forwards, but he has been prone to injuries each season which has forced him to be on the treatment table. That has taken a toll on his form where in the end he has been distracted form back into the squad, and I think that is the problem at PSG.

You don't have to take my word for it, but Neymar's goal stats each season says it all. Had Neymar not had so many injuries then I think he would have had better stats on that.

This is a very insightful overview. His average performance and scorer points per game are good and Neymar is a great player, but with very limited availability and I didn't even know that he was injured every single season. I mean wow, on average he missed about 50% of the games every season in Ligue 1. But what I also noticed is how often he is too bad-tempered. Is it normal for a striker to have six yellow and two red cards in 18 games?

But when he has been injured every single season for so many years in a row, a club signing him must know that if everything goes well they can have him play 50% of the time. He has also missed the important games sometimes. He can never really become one of those reliable top performers because a coach always has to have an alternative strategy ready because he could be injured tomorrow.

[harapan]

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Luis Enrique is a typical coach who has the quality and strategy that can also be relied on for crucial matches. But if his arrival was unable to make a difference for PSG, especially when they played in the Champions League and were unable to bring PSG to reach the semifinals at least then it was the same with the previous coach.

Luis Enrique has already made it clear that Champions League is their goal. He has prepared already to take this challenge, and their past performances in the CL may not have been promising, but it doesn't mean they won't overcome their past limitations. With a new season, a new coach, and a fresh set of challenges ahead, anything is possible.

If the main focus would be on winning the Champions League someone tell me how they will do so when player's like Neymar and Dembele gets Injured during a tough Champions League match.
Luis Enrique has won the Champions League before even if Paris are not having what they want there is no limit to what can be achieved. It's a new season, if Manchester City can do it then league one Champions can also win the competition. PSG shouldn't look at the past to lose confidence but it should be as a guide so they don't follow same steps to never win the Champions League.

[Leviathan.007]

Having been brought in last summer to replace Leonardo and to bring in a new approach to recruitment at Paris Saint-Germain, the club’s sporting advisor Luis Campos could already be packing his bags.

According to L’Équipe, the latest twist in the Kylian Mbappé saga has weakened the Portuguese director’s position at the club. He was amongst those who did not want to leave him out of the PSG squad that travelled to Japan for pre-season, a tactic used to pressure the French attacker into to make up his mind about his future – and that put Campos in a sticky situation.

Instead of being on the forefront of this issue, which his position at the club requires him to be, he has been in the shadows, and not very vocal, unlike his president Nasser Al Khelaifi. He had even told the latter to calm down, show a little bit of pragmatism, rather than frustration with the Frenchman.

The club seem somewhat willing protect the sporting advisor, as they do not want to add to the current issues they are facing, leaving Campos do his work in the background. The recruitment campaign he has led this summer has seen the arrivals of Marco Asensio, Manuel Ugarte, Milan Škriniar, Cher Ndour and Kang-In Lee.

His influence has, however, been reduced. The arrivals of Lucas Hernandéz and Xavi Simons, as well as probable future transfer for Ousmane Dembélé have seemingly been operated by the Qatari president of the club. Meanwhile, Campos is focusing on deals for Bradley Barcola and Gonçalo Ramos.

Source: https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2023/luis-campos-future-at-paris-saint-germain-in-doubt-following-kylian-mbappe-saga/

It seems that Mbappé's effect has made a lot of noise to the players who are on the team with him, it's something very curious, because Mbappé has a lot of influence over his teammates, of course he doesn't have enough influence over Neymar, from what I see Ney He can take advantage of this situation to shoulder the team as he does in Brazil, which is not bad, he has the support of Luis Enrique (who is quite complicated) so he should take advantage of that plus he has now.

Every team needs an indisputable leader to inject that energy, that positivism, PSG is doing everything possible to stay afloat. However, I think that something else aftls to them.

We see some bad news about Enerque and PSG recently and it seems when Mbappe starts leaving PSG there will be more effects on this team than just losing this player because, now there is a chance for them to stop working with Luís Campos because the relationship between this person and Mbappe but if this happens and Luís Campos leave PSG, there is even the chance for them to lose Enrique in the while he just started working there which can bring chaos to PSG.

[Rengga Jati]

If the main focus would be on winning the Champions League someone tell me how they will do so when player's like Neymar and Dembele gets Injured during a tough Champions League match.

Of course, their main target is the UCL. Because after all in the French League, they will be the winners as usual, no other club has been able to compete consistently and big there. But for some reason, even though they used to have the 3 best players in the world, they still couldn't win the UCL. This is because football is a team game and a strategy that is very suitable for the conditions at that time, how the coach manages the team and creates extraordinary tactics. but it seems PSG doesn't have it yet.

Especially this season, where their only player is Neymar, who incidentally has been injured frequently. Of course, this cannot be relied on anymore and it seems that the desire to excel in the UCL will fail. They are still focused on getting Mbappe there and there are no signs of bringing a big player who is indeed very talented to his club, as a replacement for Mbappe later. Everything is new, just a rumor.

[Docnaster]

If the main focus would be on winning the Champions League someone tell me how they will do so when player's like Neymar and Dembele gets Injured during a tough Champions League match.

Of course, their main target is the UCL. Because after all in the French League, they will be the winners as usual, no other club has been able to compete consistently and big there. But for some reason, even though they used to have the 3 best players in the world, they still couldn't win the UCL. This is because football is a team game and a strategy that is very suitable for the conditions at that time, how the coach manages the team and creates extraordinary tactics. but it seems PSG doesn't have it yet.

Especially this season, where their only player is Neymar, who incidentally has been injured frequently. Of course, this cannot be relied on anymore and it seems that the desire to excel in the UCL will fail. They are still focused on getting Mbappe there and there are no signs of bringing a big player who is indeed very talented to his club, as a replacement for Mbappe later. Everything is new, just a rumor.

There's no doubt that Paris Saint Germaine main interest as far as football is concerned is the fact that they really want to win the UEFA Champions League competition.
Talking about the pronity of Neymar and Dembele having in the middle of the season, there's every possiblity that they can have a full injury free season and help PSG in their quest for champions league gmorty

[snipie]

There's no doubt that Paris Saint Germaine main interest as far as football is concerned is the fact that they really want to win the UEFA Champions League competition.
Talking about the pronity of Neymar and Dembele having in the middle of the season, there's every possiblity that they can have a full injury free season and help PSG in their quest for champions league gmorty

There is some rivalry between cheikhs in general and seeing Manchester City = Emirates, winning the Champions League title, pissed certainly Qatar in a way or another and made them stressed to achieve their mission to win the title. Mbappe decision, in addition to Messi and Ramos departures, mixed their ambitions and trashed them. PSG fixed the defence line but the attack one still require a lot of efforts!

[BlackBoss_]

Especially this season, where their only player is Neymar, who incidentally has been injured frequently. Of course, this cannot be relied on anymore and it seems that the desire to excel in the UCL will fail. They are still focused on getting Mbappe there and there are no signs of bringing a big player who is indeed very talented to his club, as a replacement for Mbappe later. Everything is new, just a rumor.

Neymar is sensitive with injuries and he has one more issue, his style has very slow intensity. It reduces general speed of PSG attacking and will give opponents enough time to restructure their defense system.

Neymar still has two more years in his contract with PSG and with a departure of Messi, unknown future of Mbappe and likely will be another departure, Neymar definitely has a birghter future there. PSG will need him at least in one or two more seasons. They have to hope that he will not be injured and miss many matches especially when Champions League goes to knock out stages.

[makishart]

There's no doubt that Paris Saint Germaine main interest as far as football is concerned is the fact that they really want to win the UEFA Champions League competition.
Talking about the pronity of Neymar and Dembele having in the middle of the season, there's every possiblity that they can have a full injury free season and help PSG in their quest for champions league gmorty

That interest already owned by the club since a few years ago. That has also become the main reason for PSG already spent a bunch of money to bought mbappe, neymar or even messi in the past, but PSG kept failed won UCL trophy.
My expectation for PSG is much lower for this season in UCL. It's caused by PSG was not in a good term at this moment. Im still quizzing PSG's performance for this season.

PSG got bad results in the pre season. Im aware how weak PSG is right now. PSG is still lack of everything. The defensive line was weak as well as attacking line which is rarely making proper finishing.
It makes the situation if clear for PSG at this moment if the club needs to push all the lines.

PSG buys a. new striker but i kinda feel if there will be no change in the performance of the attacking line.

[AndySt]

There is some rivalry between cheikhs in general and seeing Manchester City = Emirates, winning the Champions League title, pissed certainly Qatar in a way or another and made them stressed to achieve their mission to win the title. Mbappe decision, in addition to Messi and Ramos departures, mixed their ambitions and trashed them. PSG fixed the defence line but the attack one still require a lot of efforts!

In principle, I understand the rumors that Luis Enrique is already thinking of leaving the club, although only a month has passed since his appointment. Let the representatives of Paris Saint Germain refute these rumors. Instead of building a team, the head coach is now an observer in the situation with Mbappe and it is completely unclear who to bet on next season.

[borovichok]

In principle, I understand the rumors that Luis Enrique is already thinking of leaving the club, although only a month has passed since his appointment. Let the representatives of Paris Saint Germain refute these rumors. Instead of building a team, the head coach is now an observer in the situation with Mbappe and it is completely unclear who to bet on next season.

PSG continues to sign players this summer for the purpose to avoid a decline in performance if Kylian Mbappe decides to leave. Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president, is doing all in his ability to avoid significant losses from his key players. The new manager has no plans to leave Parc des Princes anytime soon because he still has plenty of work and ambitions to complete. Luis Enrique will stay and complete the job he was assigned to do; the only hurdle Parisians face is the pending departure of their greatest player. Kylian Mbappe did not trigger any bids to leave this summer, making him a free agent next season, allowing him to depart for free without PSG gaining financially. 

[hd49728]

PSG continues to sign players this summer for the purpose to avoid a decline in performance if Kylian Mbappe decides to leave. Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president, is doing all in his ability to avoid significant losses from his key players. The new manager has no plans to leave Parc des Princes anytime soon because he still has plenty of work and ambitions to complete. Luis Enrique will stay and complete the job he was assigned to do; the only hurdle Parisians face is the pending departure of their greatest player.

PSG have to gradually replace their current players who mostly have been playing for them many years and are old players now. With drama around Mbappe and failures in the past two seasons with Messi, Neymar, Mbappe as their main attacking players but cause lack of support for defense, PSG are changing their approach by stop giving star players like Mbappe too much power.

If they sign with new and young players with this new approach, they will build up a more energetic team that are more united together and attacking players can contribute more for their defense, pressing. When a whole team unite together in both attacking and defense, PSG will become a more dangerous team and they will come more closely to Champions League title like Manchester City.

Kylian Mbappe did not trigger any bids to leave this summer, making him a free agent next season, allowing him to depart for free without PSG gaining financially. 

Mbappe no longer wants to play more for PSG  and he only aims at Real Madrid. PSG knew it and they responded strongly that they will no longer want to play the game hide and seek with Mbappe as well as no longer want to increase his salary more or give him more privileges in the club. I believe the future of Mbappe will no longer be at PSG but firstly he successfully meets a condition to receive big loyalty fee from PSG by staying there after 1st August.

[asriloni]

In principle, I understand the rumors that Luis Enrique is already thinking of leaving the club, although only a month has passed since his appointment. Let the representatives of Paris Saint Germain refute these rumors. Instead of building a team, the head coach is now an observer in the situation with Mbappe and it is completely unclear who to bet on next season.

Is this for real? i never thought that if enrique already considered to leave from the club while he has been signing a contract with PSG last months. It sounds non sense to happen.

https://www.marca.com/en/football/ligue-1/2023/08/04/64cc1b5622601dd70d8b45b3.html

OMG! i checked the news and it seems to be real. It seems like that enrique aware if the pressure from coaching PSG is really big. PSG is not making good progress. It seems like that enrique wanna try to give up before it's too late.
Many players already signed by the club but it seems like that there is no good progress is happening with the club. I could understand why enrique wanna try to leave from the club.

I hope this will not be real. Public was also getting surprised to see how he is thinking to leave from the club. Luis campos has been rumored to leave from PSG as soon as possible too.
It will be so bad for the club to lose those guys. They shall think again before try to take such decisions.

[Strongkored]

Dembele couldn't do what he wanted in Barcelona. Some simple mistakes have angered fans many times. Some players may not be able to adapt to certain teams. I don't know why, but I think Dembele will do well at PSG. His speed and dribbling ability can make him useful in PSG.

I had not read any news about this transfer before. PSG quickly transferred Dembele. I think this is a transfer success. If they had previously said they were interested in Dembele and another club had been interested in Dembele, this transfer would have been more costly.

Seeing Dembele unable to make his career at the club he really likes is quite strange and injury is one of the reasons he can't be optimal at Barcelona, his statistics at the club are not very encouraging, so his decision to start his career at a new club is right, because he has an opportunity to reinvent their performance or even more, because usually, players will try to prove themselves at their new club, even though the opposite can happen because anything can happen.
PSG really needs another striker because of rumors that they will not play Mbappe in the remaining year of his contract if there is no contract extension agreement from the player, so PSG will quickly look for alternative players and of course they are happy because it turns out that the Dembele they are aiming for also said yes, so this is a fast transfer especially because Barcelona also needs funds to buy other players.

[dezoel]

Dembele is going to fill Messi's void at PSG as it seems. This transfer is happening all of a sudden really. I didn't even know whether there was a release clause of Dembele worth 50 million euros until last Monday until PSG made an offer for him. I don't see any update so I hope PSG managed to benefit from that.

Dembele has a really great skillset. If he doesn't have problem any adaptation problem here which I don't expect at all he should be making a significant level of contribution. Mbappe is also likely to stay this season. But I don't know about Neymar's future. If he stays I won't be surprised in case he gets a lasting injury again.

Apart from that I highlight the worth of the 50 million euros that Paris Saint Germain has spent, does it really work? This is based on what Dembele has gone through with Barcelona, he has shown no progress in the last two seasons with Barca. I honestly doubt Dembele's performance, but it would be fairer to see his debut first.
It looks like Luis Enrique will need to prepare alternative options if Dembele did not perform as expected

There is no doubt about this skill and quality but here we have another issue is this surely going to work for the PSG, or they are going to have another Neymar into their squad because Barcelona's big signs never work for the PSG, and they also lost huge funds as well so look like things like this can happen again, and they have to have proper replacement for him as well if they want to have better end of the next season.

Even right now, things are not clear how they are going to manage because Mbappé future is not clear with injury porn Neymar is only main striker and now after having another injury porn striker Dembélé can they fight hard for the title of Champions League, or we are going to have another poor exit from them in this season even Luis Enrique is good coach and can keep things under control for the better result with these quality players.

[BALIK]

In principle, I understand the rumors that Luis Enrique is already thinking of leaving the club, although only a month has passed since his appointment. Let the representatives of Paris Saint Germain refute these rumors. Instead of building a team, the head coach is now an observer in the situation with Mbappe and it is completely unclear who to bet on next season.

PSG continues to sign players this summer for the purpose to avoid a decline in performance if Kylian Mbappe decides to leave. Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president, is doing all in his ability to avoid significant losses from his key players. The new manager has no plans to leave Parc des Princes anytime soon because he still has plenty of work and ambitions to complete. Luis Enrique will stay and complete the job he was assigned to do; the only hurdle Parisians face is the pending departure of their greatest player. Kylian Mbappe did not trigger any bids to leave this summer, making him a free agent next season, allowing him to depart for free without PSG gaining financially. 

I don't think Luis Enrique will leave the club so soon. The season hasn't started yet. Luis Enrique still has plenty of time to work with the team. PSG management should give big funds to Luis Enrique to buy players. PSG management is yet to make a final decision about Mbappe. I think PSG will start buying players even if the Mbappe issue is resolved.
Mbappe is likely to leave the club as a free agent. Such rumors are heard the most. PSG will suffer financially. Because of this, PSG can give Mbappe to Liverpool on a 1-year loan. This seems more likely.

[Litzki1990]

Dembele is going to fill Messi's void at PSG as it seems. This transfer is happening all of a sudden really. I didn't even know whether there was a release clause of Dembele worth 50 million euros until last Monday until PSG made an offer for him. I don't see any update so I hope PSG managed to benefit from that.

Dembele has a really great skillset. If he doesn't have problem any adaptation problem here which I don't expect at all he should be making a significant level of contribution. Mbappe is also likely to stay this season. But I don't know about Neymar's future. If he stays I won't be surprised in case he gets a lasting injury again.

Apart from that I highlight the worth of the 50 million euros that Paris Saint Germain has spent, does it really work? This is based on what Dembele has gone through with Barcelona, he has shown no progress in the last two seasons with Barca. I honestly doubt Dembele's performance, but it would be fairer to see his debut first.
It looks like Luis Enrique will need to prepare alternative options if Dembele did not perform as expected

€50m is not a big deal for Paris SG because we know that this club has very good finances and it doesn't matter how much you have to spend, the most important thing is that the target players can be found.
Here a lot of people say or doubt Dembele's performance just because of his injury but for me it's not a problem because the injury has a certain time to heal completely and even though at Barca Dembele doesn't have a good performance but we don't know what will happen and usually Players will be more talented when they meet the right coach.
Another thing that you don't need to worry about is when Paris SG starts buying players at high prices, I am sure that these players are considered to have good talent by Paris SG so they have the courage to bid at high prices.

Dembele couldn't do what he wanted in Barcelona. Some simple mistakes have angered fans many times. Some players may not be able to adapt to certain teams. I don't know why, but I think Dembele will do well at PSG. His speed and dribbling ability can make him useful in PSG.

I had not read any news about this transfer before. PSG quickly transferred Dembele. I think this is a transfer success. If they had previously said they were interested in Dembele and another club had been interested in Dembele, this transfer would have been more costly.

Dembele did not live up to the expectations that Barcelona brought Dembele to the team, which is why Barcelona are now planning to sell the player, while PSG are already in talks with Barcelona to sign Dembele. Considering PSG's current attacking line, signing Dembele could be a good decision. Although this French star did not perform as expected by Barcelona, I hope he can perform as expected by PSG and Dembele will be an important forward star for PSG. Dembele could be signed by PSG very soon and the French star could be seen in PSG's training camp very soon.

[rendravolt]

In principle, I understand the rumors that Luis Enrique is already thinking of leaving the club, although only a month has passed since his appointment. Let the representatives of Paris Saint Germain refute these rumors. Instead of building a team, the head coach is now an observer in the situation with Mbappe and it is completely unclear who to bet on next season.

PSG continues to sign players this summer for the purpose to avoid a decline in performance if Kylian Mbappe decides to leave. Nasser Al-Khelaifi, the president, is doing all in his ability to avoid significant losses from his key players. The new manager has no plans to leave Parc des Princes anytime soon because he still has plenty of work and ambitions to complete. Luis Enrique will stay and complete the job he was assigned to do; the only hurdle Parisians face is the pending departure of their greatest player. Kylian Mbappe did not trigger any bids to leave this summer, making him a free agent next season, allowing him to depart for free without PSG gaining financially. 

PSG did a good job by continuing to bring in these new players to anticipate unwanted things like you said. Mbappe's departure was what PSG feared the most, therefore they immediately moved quickly to sign Dembele. Meanwhile, Luis Enrique seems to have no problem with the departure of the PSG star player because he has started all the pre-season matches without Mbappe in the squad.

I think Enrique is ready with the consequences and will bet with the squad he has chosen now. I think all parties need to be more open-minded and not continue to depend all the circumstances of the club on one player and if Mbappe ends up leaving next year, they have to be prepared with everything and have nothing to regret.

[doomloop]

6 seasons with Barcelona and in this transfer window Dembele officially left for Psg. Yes, this is a big surprise that happened in this transfer window because Dembele became one of the core players in the Barcelona squad who chose to go to PSG. Dembele, who was bought by Barcelona from Dortmund at a fairly high price, but his performance is not too impressive if we look at the statistics in his 6 seasons with Barcelona.

PSG have finally found a multi-talented player to support their strength in the next season. Dembele presence in Luis Enrique's squad will make their right wing even stronger in building attacks next season. Moreover, he will be a pretty good bait supplier for Asensio next season.

Surprise entry of Dembélé is surely big plus for the PSG because now they are feeling better and now having good striker which can give good support their all strategies and also Asensio can make good chemistry with player like Dembélé which is arrived and all were shocked even Xavi is also not happy with this all, but now they all have to accept this because this deal is done and Barcelona also agreed with this all as well.

Dembélé spend good time here at Barcelona even his performance is still in talk and mostly feeling he was not as par requirement but still things were good and favorable for the both parties and Barcelona were also feeling comfortable, but now this exit can bring any big change into Barcelona performance and can PSG go through for the better results in Champions League.