The Galtier era at PSG begins. Will he finally be the right man for the Parisians?

PSG has a new coach, the seventh in 11 years. This time, however, the management has chosen not the biggest name on the market, but Christopher Galtier, who managed to break the Parisian domination of Ligue 1 in Lille. Will he finally be the right man to lead PSG to the European top?

Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel, Unai Emery, Laurent Blanc or Carlo Ancelotti. None of them managed to win the coveted Champions League on the PSG bench. A trophy that has been in the sights of the Qatari sheikhs who bought the club for European glory since the beginning.

They have dominated the domestic league almost without a problem, since 2013 they have only been overtaken once by Monaco and once by Lille. But Ligue 1 is no longer of interest to the sheikhs, the Champions League is the main goal.

And that’s why they stepped up last summer. Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Georginio Wijnaldum arrived for free, as well as outfield players Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes.

But it didn’t lead to anything, PSG were eliminated in the eighth round, where the big collapse came at Real Madrid. There was speculation that Pochettino didn’t have the trust and respect in the cabinet and the stars weren’t listening to him. That’s why he was sacked in the summer and Christopher Galtier came in his place.

The new coach

Unlike Pochettino, Tuchel, Emery or Ancelotti, Galtier has no such name in Europe. He coached Saint-Étienne for eight years, led Lille for four years and sat on the bench at Nice last season. No glittering coaching career to name, but Galtier is a very experienced tactician.

After all, he led Lille to a shock title the season before last, just ahead of PSG. He lifted Nice to fifth in the table and into the cup final.

His main role won’t be coaching. After all, Messi, Neymar or Mbappé don’t have much to teach. With a team where there are so many stars together, it is extremely important to be a good psychologist and get all the players mentally right.

Pochettino failed to do that, some players started to publicly complain about the lack of playing time, others wanted a bigger role in the team, the picture of Messi not shaking the coach’s hand after being substituted and leaving in a huff was also telling.

Tactical plans

Galtier will also have to focus on how he wants to present himself with PSG. After all, last season we often watched the infamous 7-3 formation where the trident of Mbappé – Neymar – Messi was left in the attacking half with no interest in defending and the rest of the team had to work for them as well. We saw a similar phenomenon even in the most important games, like against Manchester City in the Champions League group stage.

“We will have to automatically adapt our system of play to the eleven players I will have at my disposal, the talented players who will make up the team,” Galtier described his plans.

“We cannot play the same style as I have played with other teams in the past, whether it was Nice last time or Lille and Saint-Étienne before that,” the new PSG coach added.

“But thanks to this experience, I know how to prepare for the games against Paris and I will have to find different keys than I found when I was on the other side of the barricade. Paris Saint-Germain is a team that likes to keep possession of the ball, playing against deep-set defensive blocks, and you need patience and the right balance to win the ball quickly and keep the opponent constantly under pressure,” Galtier explained.

Changing the system for Neymar?

The main challenge for Galtier will be to manage the high egos of the players. One of them is Neymar, who is almost obsessed with being in the spotlight. According to leading French daily Le Parisien, Galtier wants to use the 30-year-old Brazilian as a number 10 in a 3-5-2 formation.

This is another novelty Galtier wants to implement to the team. After all, Pochettino has exclusively used a 4-3-3 system, occasionally a 4-4-2. The three-defender system is new for PSG, although some players have already experienced it under Thomas Tuchel or Unaie Emery.

Galtier’s plan is to have Messi and Mbappé at the tip of the attack and Neymar underneath them in midfield. This would put the creative footballer more in the centre of the action than on the wing, which is his usual position. However, it won’t be a complete novelty for him, he has already played as a sub in the Brazilian national team and has done well there.

Defensive key

There is no need to talk about PSG’s offensive strength. Messi, Neymar and Mbappé guarantee an ample supply of goals, but the Parisians lacked defensive discipline last season, especially under pressure.

The Champions League eight-final rematch with Real Madrid serves as a fine case in point, when the PSG defence let in three goals in 17 minutes, the last two even within two minutes immediately after an own goal.

It was often chaos defensively, with the Parisians getting a lot of silly and unnecessary goals. But it is these problems that Galtier can correct. After all, the French coach specialises in defensive work and relies on a sophisticated and compact system that is difficult to get into.

His Lille conceded just 23 goals in 38 games in the 2020/21 title season, and yet Galtier had no world-class stars at his disposal.

So Galtier is beginning a difficult mission. The Ligue 1 title is not taken as an achievement, it should be a given. The Qatari owners want to finally win the Champions League, that’s why they are pouring so much money into the squad. If the 55 year old coach fails, someone else will come to try again in a few seasons.

Source: PSG, Ligue 1, Lille