What the French newspapers are saying about PSG 7-1 Celtic

Brendan Rodgers applauds the travelling support after the Group B match between Paris Saint-Germain and Celtic at the Parc des Princes in Paris. Picture: Getty Images

Rodolphe Ryo, of L’Express, wrote: “Even if Celtic are far from being a strong European side, the attacking potential of PSG is quite impressive.”

He added: “Moussa Dembele was one of the few highlights for Celtic tonight.

“The [PSG fans] are enjoying this evening. It’s not the same as the atmosphere in Celtic Park and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ but it’s not bad.”

Ryo also pointed out that there were ‘far too many spaces in the Celtic defence’ time after time.

The report in Ouest-France stated: “Some might say it was ‘only’ Celtic who PSG were up against, but the Scottish champions drew against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and Borussia Monchengladbach in the Champions League last year.”

FranceFootball carried quotes from Moussa Dembele, who said: “In the first 20 minutes we were in the match and then we let them go. We must learn from our mistakes.”

At the time of writing, 17432 people had voted in L’Equipe’s ‘most disappointing Celtic player’ poll; Craig Gordon topping the list with 28 per cent.

In second place was ‘other’ with 17 per cent and Callum McGregor was voted the third most disappointing Celtic player with 14 per cent.

Mikael Lustig, who was forced off with an injury after just 13 minutes, was rated a bigger disappointment than Scott Brown, Jozo Simunovic and Dedryck Boyata, all of whom played the full 90 minutes.

L’Equipe’s player ratings also made for grim reading for the Celtic players, with Boyata given a scathing 1/10 as the paper awarded an average of just 2.3 for the Celtic team.

Dembele, Kieran Tierney, Tom Rogic and Olivier Ntcham were the only Celtic players to score a rating of 3.

Christophe Remise of Le Figaro suggested that PSG had been ‘unstoppable... too strong for a Scottish team that clearly isn’t on the same level.’

L’internaute’s report read: “Moussa Dembélé was the best Celtic player tonight at the Parc des Princes, playing for the first time against his former club PSG.”

The paper also quoted Dembele as saying: “It was a difficult match against high quality players. When we play against teams like that, if we give them an opportunity, it’s a goal, and that’s what happened today.”

Le Point’s live blog praised the efforts of Olivier Ntcham - ‘very good tonight despite the result’ while 20Minutes welcomed the inclusion of former PSG starlet Moussa Dembele in the starting XI, saying: “We are delighted to see Dembele [starting] in attack. Perhaps he could play for PSG, who knows, maybe it will happen some day?”