Who is going to give current French champions PSG a run for their money this season? The answer after 4 games is no one.
That sure sounds like depressing news as far as Ligue 1 is concerned with PSG opening up a 3 point gap at the top already. The team actually look at their best since 2012 when they started to dominate French football after being taken over and then having a seemingly bottomless pit of money to buy players with.
Not only do PSG have a 3 point lead at the top but in effect and for some it is more like a 5 point lead. That is because the teams currently in 2nd, 3rd and 4th position are Dijon, Toulouse and Lille. With all due respect neither of these teams are being counted on to keep up their challenge for the remainder of the season and whilst all have started very well the odds are very much against them keeping that consistency.
That leaves us then with the usual suspects. First up is Marseille who are in 5th place with 7 points. Their last result was a superb 3-2 win at Monaco but they have had an indifferent if not unbalanced start to the season which includes drawing at home to Rennes and losing 3-1 away to newly promoted side Nimes.
Lyon have tried to close the gap in recent seasons to PSG but find themselves in 8th place and already 6 points behind the champions. They have already lost 2 games this season, something which PSG may not do until halfway into it. Can we write them off, most probably.
Then of course there is Monaco, a team on the face of it that we should take seriously since they are the only team to have stopped PSG’s utter dominance since 2012 when they won the league title in 2017. Alas they are a team who like to sell on their best players and they have lost so much quality that they are a shadow of the side we could once rely on to win games week in and week out. That was finalised with the sale of Kylian Mbappe to PSG for over 100m euros. Yes the money was too good not to take but Monaco have also sold the one player that could have changed their fortunes and the club have sold quite possibly the best teenager in the world to their biggest domestic rival.
Monaco are currently in 13th place and for a team that would normally be bear hugging PSG for much of the season it is sad to see them less than a month into it 8 points behind.
That leaves us back with PSG a team that in theory last season had won the title by Christmas. And whilst it remains true that no team no matter how great they are can win a league so early, they can stretch their lead so much that in effect other teams give up, that’s why in a few months time PSG in theory yet again will be league champions, anything else will simply be a stay of execution until billionaire owners open up the league more and takeover PSG’s closest rivals, until then PSG will dominate in France.
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