Blanc hails Paris' 'best performance of season'
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Article summary
Laurent Blanc said Paris Saint-Germain "played well in both defence and attack" at Shakhtar Donetsk, who Mircea Lucescu admitted had been harried into mistakes.
Article top media content
Article body
- Laurent Blanc "very satisfied" as Paris ease to victory at Shakhtar Donetsk
- Coach describes 3-0 win as "our best match of the season"
- Mircea Lucescu says youthful Shakhtar's lack of experience cost them dear
Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
I don't think we deserved this kind of defeat, but we have now played against two great teams, Real Madrid and Paris, who are built to play in a massive tournament like the Champions League. Now we have to fight for third place in the group, because no matter how well we can play we will not match Madrid and Paris this season.
We have lots of young players in midfield who lack experience. They were in a hurry and made mistakes. [Serge] Aurier's goal knocked us off our stride and we also missed good chances.
At half-time I told my players to play with more intensity so they took risks and attacked more. We changed the game in the second half but were not able to achieve our aims. Paris deserved this win as they took their chances perfectly.
Laurent Blanc, Paris coach
I think this was our best performance of the season as we defeated a really strong team in Shakhtar. We played well both in defence and in attack. As I said yesterday, the team who defender better would win the game and so it proved. Shakhtar created a lot of problems for us and I'm very satisfied with the result.
We had fewer shots [than Shakhtar] but more real opportunities. I'm happy with the intensity of our play. I was a bit worried in the second half as Shakhtar changed the game but then we scored the third and everything became clear.
Serge Aurier needed some time to adapt to our game but now he's showing his best qualities. I want to praise all of our defence and the whole team, who showed very good defensive organisation and took their chances up front. We can now look forward to the two matches against Real Madrid, a really big club. But today I just want to celebrate this victory against another very good team.