Luis Enrique said PSG would improve without Kylian Mbappé. He was right

“It’s only the start,” said Lucas Hernández as Paris Saint-Germain wrapped up their fourth consecutive Ligue 1 title in muted fashion against Angers on Saturday. To be crowned league champions is the crescendo of a season for many clubs; for PSG, it is merely the starting gun.

This isn’t the earliest that PSG have won the title. In March 2016, Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored four of his 38 league goals that season in a 9-0 win over Troyes, ensuring Laurent Blanc’s side wrapped up the title with eight games to spare. This term though, there weren’t the same fireworks as Désiré Doué’s solitary goal was enough to secure the all-important win but, make no mistake, this has been PSG’s most emphatic title win.

Never have PSG had a higher Ligue 1 win percentage (82.1%) in the QSI era. It is a level of success that has coincided with the total control approachimplemented by Luis Enrique. The groundwork was laid last season, but it took Kylian Mbappé’s departure for the chef d’oeuvre to take its complete form.

“It is easy to work the ball out of the defence because the front three don’t defend,” said Yunis Abdelhamid as he captained Reims to a draw in the final year of the underwhelming Lionel Messi, Neymar, Mbappé era. Playing the trio was always a conundrum for then-manager Christophe Galtier, who could neither dissolve the MNM partnership nor create a coherent gameplan. How can you build a team when only seven of the 10 outfield players run back?

Those issues were partially alleviated by the departures of Messi and Neymar in 2023 but, when Luis Enrique arrived in that same summer, there was still one passenger: Mbappé. “I was brave when I told you last season that we would have a better team in attack and defence,” the manager said in February. “I continue to say that and the numbers are there to show it.” It is difficult to argue otherwise.

Luis Enrique has built a near-perfect team without stars. Photograph: Matthieu Mirville/DPPI/Shutterstock

With 9.8 recoveries deep in the opposition half per Ligue 1 match, the highest average possession (68.3%) and the most completed passes per match (653) on average this season, Luis Enrique’s death-by-possession vision has become a reality. Total control has been asserted, opposition are suffocated and, domestically at least , eventually succumb. The battle becomes not only against the most talented, technical and expensively assembled squad in France but also a battle against odds and averages.

With so much of the ball, Ousmane Dembélé, Bradley Barcola, Gonçalo Ramos, Désiré Doué – all of whom have scored more than 10 goals this season – and now Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, inevitably make their mark at some point. PSG’s quest for an invincible domestic season attests to that law of averages that Luis Enrique himself has successfully imposed.

“There are records that didn’t interest me until today, but we will try to remain unbeaten all season. This record is very interesting,” said the PSG manager before the win over Angers. But there are more important matters at hand. “It is the most important part of the season with the trophies that remain. Winning the Champions League has always been an objective; we have achieved one, now time for another,” said Hernández.

In what will be Luis Enrique’s 100th game as PSG manager, his counterpart is a man who once took the same seat in the Parc des Princes dugout – Unai Emery. During his time as manager, Emery fought against the current at PSG, grappling with issues of short-termism and unbridled player power. Unlike his compatriot, Emery was not backed in those endeavours to right the wrongs of the club. “At Manchester City, Pep Guardiola is in charge. At PSG, Neymar has to be,” said the Spaniard after he left the club in 2018.

Emery, Thomas Tuchel, Mauricio Pochettino and Galtier were all asked to cobble together a team comprised of contrasting and disparate elements. That is not to say that Luis Enrique, who has the best points-per-game average of any QSI-era PSG manager in Ligue 1, inherited perfection back in 2023, but he has at least been empowered to create his interpretation of it.

And while there is plenty of flair on the pitch and a certain freedom afforded to the exciting attacking players, there is something mundane in this dominance that isn’t linked to the style of play on the pitch but more to the inevitable outcomes of it – like going to watch a blockbuster only after having the ending spoiled; there is entertainment value but little jeopardy. After the circus of years gone by, PSG have become what all elite clubs really dream of becoming – boring, à la Manchester City. Champions at the start of April and strong favourites to beat Reims in the Coupe de France final next month, it is only on the European scene that Luis Enrique’s perfect PSG can be made imperfect once more.

Talking points

The title is wrapped up but there is plenty to play for at the top of the table. Marseille were unconvincing but got over the line against Toulouse, winning 3-2 to regain second spot. Monaco ceded that place after two goalkeeping errors from Philipp Köhn allowed Brest to snatch a late 2-1 win, keeping alive their own hopes of European qualification. Monaco, now third, are just three points above seventh-place Lille, who were beaten 2-1 by fifth-placed Lyon. Strasbourg continued their fine run with a slender 1-0 victory over Coupe de France finalists Reims. Liam Rosenior’s side have won seven of their last eight games in Ligue 1 and have lost just once in the league since November. Now in fourth, they are, like Lyon, a beneficiary of Nice’s slip-up against Nantes. Franck Haise’s side have now lost three of their last four and have slipped to sixth. “Negative pressure,” in Haise’s words, looks to have derailed their Champions League charge but, with so little separating second-place Marseille down to eighth-placed Brest, the European race remains wide open.

Marseile fans celebrate after their 3-2 win against Toulouse. Photograph: Christophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images

“We have to stop hoping,” said Montpellier manager Jean-Louis Gasset after Le Havre provided the final nail in their coffin. In midweek, the LFP ruled that the match between Montpellier and Saint-Étienne would not be resumed – the game between the two relegation strugglers in mid-March was abandoned due to violence in the stands of the Stade de la Mosson. St-Étienne were leading 2-0 at the time of the abandonment; that score stands. Le Havre consigned Montpellier to their ninth loss in a row (0-2) at the weekend, bolstering their own hopes of survival but almost certainly consigning Montpellier to relegation. With his team 11 points away from the playoff spot with six games remaining, Gasset knows his time on the sideline could be coming to an end. “Maybe I’m a football has-been,” he said last month, before suggesting last week that he may not finish the season as Montpellier manager. With the ship sinking, who steers it has become irrelevant.

This is an article by Get French Football News