PARIS -- Paris Saint-Germain once again made a UEFA Champions League game at Parc des Princes harder than it needed to be by falling 1-0 behind to PSV Eindhoven before fighting back to draw 1-1 on Tuesday evening in the third round of League Phase play. For much of the game against PSV it was a very familiar script for PSG in terms of dominating possession and creating chances without scoring and Ousmane Dembele was particularly guilty of being wasteful when he hit the woodwork in the first half when an equalizer seemed certain.
However, Noa Lang's 34th-minute effort separated the two sides at halftime and had PSG staring down the barrel at a rather embarrassing home loss to the Dutch giants -- although relative UCL minnows by this year's standards -- all the way through the break. Achraf Hakimi's leveler 10 minutes into the second half saw to it that Les Parisiens would not slip to defeat on home soil but it was also a very familiar script for the French champions since Luis Enrique took over as head coach.
In many ways, this result was like the Girona game in the opening round with plenty of chances created but no real cutting edge up front which meant flirting with a loss before securing a point or better. There was no error in Hakimi's finish which was too powerful for Walter Benitez to handle but to say that say that it was wholly deserved would have been a disservice to PSV who were very competitive without first-choice central midfielders Joey Veerman and Jerdy Schouten.
Achraf Hakimi strikes through the keeper to bring PSG level ⚡ pic.twitter.com/MHjmulXCul
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) October 22, 2024
We saw PSG create enough chances to equalize against Arsenal before being logically undone by a far more clinical side and it was also the same story in last season's run to the Champions League final and a handful of European games that campaign as well. Dembele has regularly been a main culprit but so too has been Luis Enrique's Parisien setup which often features no real focal point in attack with Lee Kang-in and Marco Asensio regularly used as false nines in more aesthetically pleasing but less direct and efficient game plan.
Benitez in the PSV goal deserved some credit for a few smart saves while PSG were also wasteful through other sources but the same issues keep plaguing the Ligue 1 giants and it is not a lack of opportunities to score that prevent them from running teams closer or beating them. Many people will point to the summer loss of Kylian Mbappe but it is not necessarily that given that the French superstar was not the one providing the clinical edge often last season as the UCL quarterfinals against Barcelona illustrated.
Ultimately, Luis Enrique's men create enough chances to score enough goals to beat their opponents on the day but this was another example of another game where it almost was not enough and PSG are yet to develop a way around that. Until Les Parisiens are more reliable in front of goal, most opponents will recognize that there is a way to potentially get the better of Paris as long as they remain as wasteful as they currently are both domestically and in Europe.
With Atletico Madrid at home and Bayern Munchen on the road, that switch into a more clinical team cannot come soon enough as it has already hindered them on numerous occasions and the margin for error is now much slimmer. Four points from a possible nine is not what many expected at the beginning of this campaign but it is now the reality and it dictates that wayward finishing from the likes of Dembele and others can no longer be tolerated because it is about to start really costing PSG.
