PSG v Saint-Étienne match preview

By: j | September 20th, 2008

On the heels of this weeks UEFA Cup victory over Kayserispor PSG heads to Geoffroy-Guichard to face Saint-Étienne. After four consecutive losses, Les Verts are feeling revitalized after a 2-1 victory over Hapoel Tel-Aviv in UEFA Cup action and looking to climb up the Ligue 1 table.

Recent Form
Saint-Étienne – combined (1 W, D, 4 L)(GS, GA)
Aug 9 Valenciennes 1 – 0 Saint-Étienne
Aug 16 Saint-Étienne 2 – 1 Sochaux-Montbéliard
Aug 23 Le Mans 1 – 0 Saint-Étienne
Aug 31 Saint-Étienne 0 – 1 Olympique Lyonnais
Sep 14 Caen 2 – 0 Saint-Étienne

PSG – combined (3 W, 1 D,1 L)(4 GS, 2 GA)
Aug 9 Monaco 1 – 0 PSG
Aug 16 PSG 1 – 0 Girondins de Bordeaux
Aug 23 Sochaux-Montbéliard 1 – 1 PSG
Aug 30 Caen 0 – 1 PSG
Sep 14 PSG 1 – 0 Nantes

Given that in Thursday’s match, Paul Le Guen sat out Guillaume Hoarau, Stéphane Sessegnon and Ludovic Giuly from the starting lineup and brought Claude Makélélé in late into the match, he can expect the squad fully rested and ready for Saint-Étienne. However contrary to their poor record, Les Verts are a fine club that are merely finding themselves a the wrong end of a one goal deficiency too often.

Saint-Étienne boasts a solid attacking unit that should they gel, could be a very productive group. Pascal Feindouno, Geoffrey Dernis, Daisuke Matsui and Paulo Machado compliment striker Bafetimbi Gomis and in-time will pose a problem for many defenses. In the attack, Saint-Étienne looks to pack the midfield and strangle offenses off early however they might be without Stathis Tavlaridis who is facing a pre-match fitness test from an injury suffered against Hapoel Tel-Aviv. This will be an interesting tactical match-up as Ludovic Giuly pushes the charges forward.

I will report on the match as it concludes.