Enzo Maresca believes City are “close” to PSG despite suffering a 4-2 Champions League defeat at the Etihad Stadium.
City conceded three times before half-time against the back-to-back European champions, with Desire Doue, Ousmane Dembele and Vitinha putting PSG in control. Erling Haaland scored twice during a much-improved second half, but Maghnes Akliouche’s goal ensured Maresca suffered his first defeat as City manager.
Maresca says Man City are ‘close’ to PSG
Maresca felt conceding twice in quick succession was crucial to City’s first-half problems, with Doue and Dembele scoring within two minutes of each other.
“In two minutes you concede two goals, and we lost a bit of balance, distance between players,” Maresca said. “We struggled, but then in the second half we made changes, adjusted something, and we were much better.”
Maresca introduced Matheus Nunes, Ayyoub Bouaddi and Iliman Ndiaye at half-time as City attempted to recover from a 3-0 deficit. Ndiaye created Haaland’s first goal, and Bouaddi supplied his second, while City hit the woodwork three times during the game.
The City boss said his message at the interval was that his players needed to be brave and go “toe to toe” with PSG. Despite the result, he believes the second-half performance showed there is not a significant gap between the sides.
“We are there; my feeling is we are close,” Maresca said. “In the first half, we struggled because we conceded two goals and inside the pitch you think, ‘Oh my God.'”
Maresca also revealed that PSG boss Luis Enrique spoke to him after the final whistle.
“Luis at the end told me they had been quite lucky,” he said. “We lost, but we can learn from that and move on.”
City had 21 attempts during the second half alone, with Haaland also denied a hat-trick by Matvey Safonov. Maresca said there were lessons to take from the defeat, particularly City’s reaction to falling two goals behind so quickly.
“Even if we concede two goals against the best team in Europe, we need to do the right things,” he said.
City return to Premier League action against Ipswich Town at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
Read our full report from Man City’s 4-2 defeat by PSG.
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