Enzo Maresca insists Manchester City are ‘close’ to PSG despite home defeat
Enzo Maresca said he enjoyed facing the Champions League holders and denied the Premier League charges had an impact on his players
Enzo Maresca felt Manchester City proved they were close to the level of Paris Saint-Germain after losing out to them in a Champions League thriller at the Etihad Stadium.
City trailed 3-0 at half-time against the defending champions and the damage might have been heavier. But they threw caution to the wind in the second half, creating a host of chances and hinting at a remarkable comeback before going down 4-2.
Maresca’s team, who were watched by their former manager, Pep Guardiola, had won all of their previous matches this season – apart from the Community Shield loss to Arsenal. They continue to play under the cloud of their guilty verdicts for breaking the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-year period from 2009. But on the field against PSG, Maresca suggested City were unlucky – an assessment with which his opposite number, Luis Enrique, agreed.
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“I really like to play against PSG,” Maresca said. “They are brave. I know the way they want to press, they go man to man, they are quite dynamic and I think we are there … my feeling is we are close. It was a bit of a strange game because we concede two goals in two minutes [early in the first half] and that created some problems for us. In the second half, we did enough to deserve something more. Luis told me at the end they had been quite lucky.”
It was the proverbial game of two halves, with PSG excellent in the first period. They were pushed back after the interval, City finishing with 27 shots, albeit the PSG substitute Ferran Torres did miss a penalty at the end for 5-2.
Maresca was asked whether the guilty verdicts on the Premier League charges plus the emotion of Sunday’s 3-0 win at Liverpool had affected his players in the first half. “No, I don’t think so,” he replied.
Luis Enrique said: “City created a huge amount of problems for us. The team that lost were perhaps a bit unlucky. I think the luck was on our side. It’s obvious what happened – a team losing 3-0 took risks. I knew they would really come out and go for it. They left one man in defence, they pushed everyone else forward into attack and it is really difficult to manage that. In the first half, we were almost perfect in our pressing game.”
