Evening of defeat obliges, there was not a crowd to come and speak against the microphones on Sunday evening in the PSG locker room. The executives probably having nothing to reproach themselves for, or nothing to say, the Portuguese side, Nuno Mendes, from the height of his 21 years, came to give explanations to the setback of the Parisians against Lyon (1-0). The eighth, in all competitions, of the eighteen games played since the return of the World Cup.
What’s going on at PSG?
NUNO MENDES. We enter this match with the desire to win, even if the team is not very good at the moment. But the match was also conditioned by the arbitration. Arbitration should not be an excuse, of course. We tried to give everything and do what was possible to get the win.
Are you worried about the rest of the championship?
We are six points ahead and there are still nine games left. We are PSG, we will play all the matches to win them, that’s what we have always tried to do.
To justify this defeat, you only use the pretext of arbitration deemed unfavorable to PSG with this contentious hand from Lovren?
Obviously this defeat is not only linked to the refereeing, the team should have done much better. We should have arrived more often in the decision-making zones and made the most of the chances we had. We should also have defended better, because we had a lot of imbalances which meant that we suffered and conceded this goal.
What is the in-game solution for the team to move forward?
We have to train, we have a week to prepare for the match against Nice. We have to train and give our best, we are top level players.
When a team loses 8 times in 18 games, the coach is often weakened. Is changing coach the solution?
No, I’m not focusing on that. My job is to play and as far as the coach is concerned, the staff manages that. It is not us, the players, who pay the coach’s salary. We are paid to play and be on the pitch and that’s what we’re going to do. We don’t have to worry about the rest.
