Paris Saint-Germain, coached by Unai Emery, have a near strangle-hold of Ligue 1 and
with the recruitment of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé have not only made themselves even stronger but, in the case of the ex Monaco
teen prodigy, further weakened one of their few domestic rivals.
There’s a temptation to say that when a team is so dominant in their
domestic league, tactics or systems are secondary simply to having the very best players.
PSG, though, are not simply a give-it-to-Neymar-and-stand-back side.
Emery uses a 4-3-3 that has shades of 4-1-2-2-1.
Edison Cavani is a strong centre-forward who holds the ball up well and provides a good aerial threat.
He’s not afraid to drop off and switch with the wide men, who play as inverted wingers.
Angel di Maria , who is playing largely on the right, is left-footed, while Neymar can
use both feet, but also cuts inside.
There are echoes of Liverpool’s front three here, in
movement and positioning, although Cavani is much more apt to stay as a focal point
than Roberto Firmino is for Liverpool.
Behind this trident, into which Mbapp é could slot anywhere, though likely left or central,
Emery deploys a midfield three with Thiago Motta central, and two of Marco Verratti,
Adrien Rabiot , or Javier Pastore either side of the Brazilian.
The midfield’s arrangement is ostensibly simple: Motta locks down the central area
and drops back towards the centre-backs when the full-backs push, and one of the other
two midfielders can push forwards into the hole, but rarely both.
All midfielders are encouraged to play through balls along the ground into
space, onto which the quick wide men or Cavani can run.
Neymar and di Maria also drop in and carry the ball across from the wide spaces into
the half or central spaces but surprisingly deep,
and this encourages PSG to rotate possession in
the central areas before players burst forwards into space.
Lastly, in attack, PSG’s full-backs get high up the pitch, as might be expected from
a side who uses a deep-dropping central midfielder for
stability and has players who like to cut inside from wide areas.
Thomas Meunier or Dani Alves and Layvin Kurzawa both push high,
occupying the opposition wide players and providing cut-back crosses, always looking
to create an overlapping option for the player who has cut in.
Defensively, PSG like to win the ball back to counter, especially as their front three is quick.
They push quite high, with Cavani dropping in to help one of the two wider central
midfielders, while the wide players push in and up.
This forces the ball wide and then PSG press using the touchline as a fourth man.
If this high block is bypassed, PSG drop their front three back into space, so that if the
ball i won back by the midfield, the attacking trident
have space to run into; many of their goals come from this ability to dribble into space
at pace and force the opposition onto the back front.
Emery developed many of these ideas during his time in Spanish football and there is
a general consistency between the way his successful
Sevilla side played and the way he now has PSG set up.
The main difference is that Sevilla usually started in a 4-2-3-1, but with the ​
ability of his midfield number 8s to push up, this is in some ways replicated in the
4-3-3 used by PSG.
PSG under Emery win a lot because of the individual skill of their players, it is true.
But the coach has created an environment on the pitch
in which they can do this.
There is more to PSG’s system than simply buying up the best.
If you want to find out more about PSG, a good place to start is the OneFootball app.
Here’s an example of some of the statistics available
within the app, which holds data on individual players as well as teams.
Thanks for watching!