Thursday 19 April 2012

Big Mama looking for a new house?

Smooth operators
Well done to whoever it was in the complex Paris St-Germain hierarchy that decided the best way for the players to get over Sunday's disappointing 1-1 draw at Auxerre was to, er, go and hang out with a fashion designer.

Squad members were at a shop owned by top fashionista Daniel Hechter on Tuesday, where they tried on some ridiculously expensive clothes and chatted to fans and the press. Sadly Jeremy Menez doesn't feature in any of the pictures so I'm not sure whether he was invited or not, and reports that he requested a pink suit have yet to be confirmed.

"I recently received an invitation and I think it's just fantastic. The players were very approachable, relaxed, answered questions... it was a great evening," said Mila, a made-up client of the store.

PSG skipper Mamadou Sakho added: "It's always nice for us to be so close to our fans and share a moment with them. We receive a lot of encouragement and that's important."

Sakho also took time to speak to Le Parisien about his own situation. The French international has been out of the side for the last three games, with Carlo Ancelotti preferring a central-defensive partnership of Alex and Milan Bisevac. And though his comments seem pretty diplomatic to me, the paper, in true tabloid fashion believes he might be "opening the door" for a summer departure.

 "It's frustrating to be on the bench, though I don't show this when I'm with the other players," he said. " The most important thing is that PSG wins and become champions. We'll discuss my personal case later."

Personally I'd be more worried if Sakho was content being out of the side, and the stats show that Ancelotti is probably right to exclude him. When MS is in the team we concede an average of 1.1 goals-per-game, compared to 0.8 goals when he's absent. This is reflected in the points-per-game tally for the season, which is 1.86 with him and 2.3 without him. Now admittedly the sample size probably accounts for part of this (Sakho has started 22 of PSG's 32 league games) but they remain numbers worth pondering as we approach the climax of the season, where every point gained or lost could be crucial.

Mamadou has become a PSG icon over the last five years since first being handed the captaincy by Paul Le Guen when he was just 17. He signed a two-year contract extension last year, meaning he is committed to the club until 2014, but could he become the most high-profile victim of the QSI revolution? I - and I suspect a lot of other PSG fans - hope not.

2 comments:

dominic said...

He is so young (for a defender) it would be madness if we didn't keep him. He's probably at least 6 years away from his peak performance, it would be so foolish to let him go.

Matthew Gooding said...

Yeah, it'd be a disaster if he left in my opinion. As you say, he should be the bed-rock of the team for years to come.

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