Neymar’s out vs Barca – what now?
It is official: Neymar is OUT for PSG’s 1st leg fixture vs Barcelona, and that leaves the Parisiens with only 3 out of their main 4 attacking cogs, losing arguably the key one. He posted on social media about the injuries, stating that “Sometimes I feel uncomfortable with my style of play, because I dribble constantly and end up getting beat up.” Later on he said “it makes me too sad to hear from a player, coach, commentator or whoever that ‘He has to be beaten’ ‘He’s a diver’ ‘He’s a whiner’ ‘child’ ‘spoiled’ etc. Honestly this saddens me” He also said that he is always feeling pain because of this injury and there’s ‘constant crying’ as well, so he may not be back in time for the second leg either, right around the time of his sister’s birthday.
The diagnosis? Adductor injury, and it’s 4 weeks, depending on the treatment. He has gotten injured around this time for the past few weeks, and it’s a pattern that is starting to get nastier and nastier. You shouldn’t be able to predict when a player gets a long term injury. It just shouldn’t happen. Period. Again, something else is going on here, we know that, but what exactly? We may never know.
So how can PSG react? They released their only direct replacement to Neymar in Jese a few months ago, and he has found a new job so he won’t be playing. The only logical thing here would probably be a formation change. Instead of their traditional 4-2-4 they would probably play a 4-3-3 with Paredes or Pereira in the midfield with Verratti and Gueye.
Will this work? Only the game will tell, and Barca’s work effort, which is very inconsistent at the moment. This will be Poch’s first PSG game without Neymar, so it will be interesting to see how he performs under the pressure of the Nou Camp without his star. I’m Jim James, and see you soon.