Rooney, re-match and a distinct lack of rouge

If the PSG move doesn't work out, Wayne is planning to usurp Alan Sugar on The Apprentice Paris St-Germain have been the subject of approximately 1,354,543 stupid transfer rumours this season,  many of which have been faithfully reported on this very blog despite clearly being about as truthful as your average politician. But even by PSGT's low standards, talk of a €150million move for Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney is too preposterous to even comment on, except to say that I could see the England man fitting in nicely if he did move to the French capital. Ok, so he's unlikely to appreciate the grandeur of the Musee D'Orsay, or the tranquil beauty of the Jardin du Luxembourg, but given some of the allegations about his...

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End of season ramblings as PSG miss out on the Ligue 1 title

Now that the dust has settled on the weekend's final round of Ligue 1 action, it's time to reflect on what has certainly been a memorable season in the short but dramatic/melodramatic/traumatic/problematic (delete as applicable) history of Paris St-Germain football club. For anyone who has been on another planet recently, PSG managed to win their final Ligue 1 match on Sunday night, labouring to a 2-1 win at Lorient thanks to second half goals from Javier Pastore and Thiago Motta. However, their efforts were in vain as leaders Montpellier recovered from going a goal down to beat Auxerre 2-1 and claim the title, Portsmouth reject John Utaka netting twice. Firstly I'd like to add my voice to the many congratulations which have been directed...

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Blanc leaves Sakho and Gameiro singing the bleus

I like CSI: Miami, but apparently I'm the only one I'm sure I'm not the only PSG fan who accidentally writes CSI rather than QSI sometimes when referring to the club's Qatari owners. Nasser Al-Khelaifi and chums are but a keystroke away from being an elite band of crime-scene technicians, specialising in solving murders while reeling off perplexing dialogue at 100mph. This week QSI have a couple of (metaphorical) bodies on their hands in the form of the international careers of Mamadou Sakho and Kevin Gameiro. You may have seen that the pair were overlooked by France boss Laurent Blanc when he completed the drawn-out process of naming his preliminary squad for Euro 2012 earlier this week. At the back Blanc selected uncapped Montpellier...

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Winners and losers

"I could definitely be better than Hazard if I wanted to" As Manchester-based football fans will confirm, four minutes is a long time in football. Paris St-Germain's already faint title hopes were almost extinguished in the fourth minute of stoppage time at the Stade Mosson on Sunday night. With the score at 0-0 between Montpellier and Lille, Olivier Giroud latched onto a long ball over the top, and showed great presence of mind to square for Karim Aït-Fana to tap in the winner for MHSC. "One more point and then a tit-wank" declared Montpellier's out-spoken president Louis Nicollin, a man who can be relied on to provide an appropriate summation of any given situation. In some respects the goal didn't make a massive difference: whereas...

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Don't stop believin'

WIN AND HOPE! declares the headline on the official site today, succinctly summing up Paris St-Germain's tasks for this coming Sunday. Personally I plan to watch the above video on repeat for the next couple of days in order to bolster my belief levels, but there won't be any need for Glee at the Camp-des-Loges, as the squad appear to be confident they can still capture the Ligue 1 title. As you probably know already, the Parisiens need to beat Rennes at the Parc on Sunday night and hope that Lille do the business against leaders Montpellier. The first part of that equation may not be as simple as it seems, as we haven't won a home game against Rennes since October 2006. "We must play at 200 per cent and follow exactly what the coach says in what is like a Champions League final...

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The Rumour Mill: Forwards flock in from Real Madrid, Napoli and AC Milan

Ridiculously expensive designer glasses always go down well in Paris In the days since the last edition of TRM, Paris St-Germain have been linked with approximately 1,623,289 players. Since most of these supposed transfers are about as likely to happen as me ending my current stint of unemployment by nabbing the editorship of The Times (if you're reading this Rupert, I'm open to offers) I'm going to ignore the first 1,623,286 of them and concentrate on the latest whispers. Le Parisien believes it has an inside track on Carlo Ancelotti's summer plans, and they involve dispensing with any kind of recognised formation and stuffing the team full of number 10s. Real Madrid's Kaka and Napoli's Ezequiel Lavezzi are said to be top priorities,...

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Valenciennes 3-4 PSG: birthday-boy Menez helps his team go top

Regular readers will know that Jeremy Menez is a popular boy here at PSGT towers, so I'll start this blog by wishing him a happy 25th birthday for today. Paris St-Germain forward Menez will no doubt be enjoying a bon anniversaire having scored what turned out to be the decisive goal in a 4-3 win over Valenciennes last night, a result which takes Les Rouge-et-Bleu back to the top of Ligue 1 on goal difference. One shudders to think what his missus - reality TV star Emilie Nef Naf - will have purchased him as a gift: gold-plated hair straighteners perhaps? Anyway, back to the match. It was a contest that featured an abundance of terrible defending, starting when Vincent Aboubakar put the home side in front after eight minutes with a goal that took a massive deflection off the back-side...

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PSG (and Lille) turn up the heat in the title race

Much like this year's Apprentice, the Ligue 1 title race is too close to call. In the case of Alan Sugar's reality show, this is because there are no stand-out candidates among his latest batch of wannabes and never-have-beens. In France's top flight there are three hopefuls, all worthy in their own ways: Montpellier, the plucky upstarts, Lille, the established favourites, and Paris St-Germain, the talented, nouveau-rich, pantomime villains. PSG's comfortable 2-0 win over St Etienne on Wednesday night moved them to within three points of leaders Montpellier, while Lille were also victorious in Nice and sit a further two points back. For perhaps the first time this season, the pressure is on MHSC to deliver, and with three games to go...

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Montpellier bottling it? PSG prepare for crucial St Etienne match

There's only one brand of water for me from now on After blithely stating on yesterday's blog that "there's no point worrying about Montpellier now", I was glued to the internet last night praying that Evian would hold out as they led MHSC 2-1 at the Stade Mosson. The match eventually ended 2-2, with Olivier Giroud sparing the home side's blushes with an equaliser five minutes from time. But what would have been a good night for the leaders, who after all extended their lead at the top by a point, turned sour in injury time. Souleymane Camara missed a penalty which would have won the match, moments after key player Younes Belhanda was sent off for lamping one of the ETG players, an incident which sparked a frankly tremendous mass brawl. Montpellier's...

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Reality bites as PSG Roux Hazard-ous night in Lille

Sirigu: Hoping for Montpellier's death So where do we go from here? That's been the question on many Paris St-Germain fans' lips since Sunday night's 2-1 defeat in Lille, where goals from Nolan Roux and Eden Hazard left our title hopes in Ligue 1 hanging by a thread. You may remember I predicted we'd lose this game, so it may seem a bit melodramatic to be reaching for the razor-blades and cutting the wrists of our Championship challenge. But Montpellier are also a couple of points better off than I thought they'd be following their win in Toulouse, and can increase their lead to eight  if they beat Evian tonight.  It's not too much of a stretch to think that MHSC could lose two of their final four games - they still have...

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