Messi does not deserve excessive criticism. Why does he have worse numbers at PSG than at Barcelona?

PSG is under fire from critics. It concerns coach Mauricio Pochettino and the whole team. Lionel Messi is no exception, who, apart from his not-so-great numbers, annoyed the fans by winning the Ballon d’Or. But does the Argentine really deserve such a wave of resentment?

Although the Parisians once again dominate the French Ligue 1 table, they also won early promotion from the Champions League group. But PSG’s performances have been unconvincing. This is evident in many ways.

After 16 rounds of Ligue 1, PSG have only scored 35 goals. Yes, it still has the best attack of the competition, but on average it is 2.18 goals per game. There doesn’t seem to be another season where the Parisians break the 100-goal mark.

As far as goal scoring stats are concerned, the entire star attacking trio, which is on paper the best in the world, across all competitions, is struggling. Mbappé is struggling to score compared to last season, Neymar hasn’t been in form so far and is now injured. And then there’s the much-criticised Lionel Messi.

The star Argentine was supposed to be the missing ingredient to help PSG win the Champions League. But so far, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. He himself has only taken care of 7 goals for his team since his arrival, scoring 4 goals and adding 3 assists.

But he could have done many times better. In the league alone, he has sent his teammates into 19 chances, but all but three of his other teammates, led by Mbappé, have burned them. In the last two games alone, he has created 10 chances.

Although he has only started 8 games in Ligue 1 and is still acclimatising, he has the fourth highest average number of chances created per game (2.4). He can be expected to improve many times more once he gets used to it.

In any case, it is worth mentioning that with an average of 2.4 chances created per game, the Argentine surpasses his career average of 2.3.

It is worth mentioning that Mbappé has burned 14 scoring chances in the league this season alone, which is by far the most in the whole competition. Thus, it can be said in part that Mbappé’s ineffectiveness is one of the factors why Messi doesn’t have better numbers.

However, Messi could have scored more goals too. He has burnt 6 big chances in the league himself, besides he has been unlucky in a few games, having already hit one of the goal structures more than once.

The fact then is that if the Argentine is worse at anything compared to the rest of his career, it’s the number of shots he’s sent in. Throughout his career he was used to sending an average of 5 shots at the opponent’s goal, now he has only 3.8 shots per game in the league, in the Champions League it is even less (2.5)

There has been a significant drop in successful dribbles from his side. The French league is more physically demanding than the Spanish league, which has a significant impact on this statistic. However, it must be taken into account that Messi is 34 years old, so at some point this decline had to come. But few could have expected it to be so significant.

On average, Messi has managed 4.5 dribbles per game in his career, but in the French league he only manages 1.4. He is better off in the Champions League, where his average is 3.

But of course, a big part of all this, apart from Messi’s acclimatisation, is the fact that PSG simply play in a completely different style to Barcelona, where he has spent his entire career. You can often tell that the Argentine is bothered by the fact that he has no one to play with.

Although the Parisian side have some excellent players in their squad, none of them are able to combine with Messi in a tricky way. PSG want to play direct, fast and without any extra combinations. And that is something that the holder of seven Ballon d’Ors has never experienced.

Messi is constantly trying to run into someone, but almost never gets the ball back. What’s more, he often ends up losing the ball because one of his teammates fumbles the ball, and a dangerous break ensues. The Argentine must be in absolute despair after such moments. This is new for him. Yet it was after the dribble that he often launched his famous dribbles.

Either way, he’s dealing with it bravely. With a little more luck and more productive teammates, no one could criticize him. He would have had very respectable numbers. As it is, he is only criticized on the basis of goals and assists, numbers that can be very distorting.

After all, according to WhoScored, Messi has an average mark of 7.25 in Ligue 1 and even 7.48 in the Champions League. Moreover, recent matches suggest that the Argentine star is slowly getting used to his new job, but it is not easy.

Source: WhoScored, Twitter, Ligue 1