PAMedia\/dpa<\/p>\n
Paris<\/p>\n
Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique is not reading too much into Liverpool\u2019s FA Cup humiliation at Manchester City and expects a \u201cdifficult\u201d Champions League clash against Arne Slot\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
The misfiring Premier League champions are under the spotlight after Saturday lunchtime\u2019s 4-0 shellacking at the Etihad Stadium compounded a 2-1 loss at Brighton before the international break.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s performance in the FA Cup quarter-final defeat to City was arguably the poorest of Slot\u2019s reign and the worst possible preparation for Wednesday\u2019s Champions League trip to holders PSG.<\/p>\n
The perennial French champions edged past the Reds on penalties in last season\u2019s round of 16 and Enrique is braced for a tough test despite the visitors\u2019 recent struggles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to try to have the ball more than Liverpool, a very good team with quality players and a very good coach,\u201d the PSG boss said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the quarter-finals, it\u2019s naturally a special game, because there are just eight teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you start to get used to being at this level, it\u2019s great as a team. It\u2019s of course positive to be able to show it against Liverpool. What we want is to qualify.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re aware of the difficulty but we\u2019re motivated. We want to enjoy playing at the Parc.\u201d PSG will be without Bradley Barcola and Fabian Ruiz for the first leg at the Parc des Princes, where Harvey Elliott, now on loan at Aston Villa, fired Liverpool to a barely believable 1-0 win last term.<\/p>\n
Alisson Becker\u2019s inspired performance provided the platform for a smash-and-grab victory that still rankles 13 months on, despite the fact Enrique\u2019s men progressed from the tie and went on to win the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Wednesday it\u2019ll be important to show that desire to play football, to enjoy the Parc, the fans, the atmosphere,\u201d the PSG head coach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the most important thing for us and our fans: to give 100 per cent. What will the result be? We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast season, we put in one of our best performances, but we lost.<\/p>\n
Liverpool were favourites, and PSG qualified. There\u2019s no favourite at this stage of the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to look to control what we can control. Liverpool are a very high-level team and to think you\u2019re the favourites is the best way to make a mess of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not important to know who\u2019s the favourite in this competition, in this kind of game. It\u2019s impossible that there\u2019s a favourite. For me, there isn\u2019t one.\u201d PSG are fourth favourites with the bookmakers to win this season\u2019s Champions League and ever-impressive midfielder Vitinha echoed his coach\u2019s sentiments ahead of the Liverpool tie.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone knows football well enough to know that in this sort of game there is no favourite,\u201d the Portugal star said. \u201cIt\u2019s Liverpool, a great team with great players, anything can happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two big games to play, at the Parc and in Liverpool. We know we\u2019ll be at 100% and one thing is certain: we\u2019ll play to win the game, because that\u2019s what we want to do every time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PAMedia\/dpa Paris Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique is not reading too much into Liverpool\u2019s FA Cup humiliation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[41071,79,34202,72464,72467,72468,15342,72466,72465,736,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-160447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-at","9":"tag-city","10":"tag-cup","11":"tag-enrique","12":"tag-into","13":"tag-liverpools","14":"tag-loss","15":"tag-much","16":"tag-not","17":"tag-reading","18":"tag-reading-city","19":"tag-reading-city-headlines","20":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}