Enzo Maresca believes Manchester City are close in strength to Paris Saint-Germain despite their 4-2 defeat by the European champions at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday.
City had won every match this season apart from their Community Shield defeat by Arsenal before facing Luis Enrique’s side. Their winning run came to an end after PSG took control before the break, scoring three times, but Maresca felt his players did enough after half-time to take something from the game.
Erling Haaland scored twice as City mounted a comeback, finishing with 27 shots and putting the visitors under sustained pressure. PSG held on for victory, although Ferran Torres missed a penalty late on that could have extended their lead to 5-2.
“I really like to play against PSG,” Maresca said. “They are brave. I know the way they want to press, they go man to man, they are quite dynamic and I think we are there … my feeling is we are close.”
The City manager said the speed at which his side conceded twice was a turning point in the first half. He rejected suggestions that the pressure surrounding the club, including their guilty verdict for breaching Premier League financial rules over a nine-year period from 2009, or Sunday’s 3-0 win at Liverpool had affected his players.
“It was a bit of a strange game because we concede two goals in two minutes and that created some problems for us,” Maresca said. “In the second half, we did enough to deserve something more. Luis told me at the end they had been quite lucky.”
PSG’s performance before half-time had threatened to turn the match into a one-sided contest. City found a different level of intensity after the break, taking greater risks in attack and forcing the visitors to defend for long periods.
Luis Enrique accepted that his team had benefited from their opponents’ second-half approach, while praising the problems City created. The PSG manager said his players had been close to perfect in their pressing during the opening period but faced a different challenge once City committed more men forward.
“City created a huge amount of problems for us,” he said. “The team that lost were perhaps a bit unlucky. I think the luck was on our side.”
He added: “It’s obvious what happened – a team losing 3-0 took risks. I knew they would really come out and go for it. They left one man in defence, they pushed everyone else forward into attack and it is really difficult to manage that.”
Maresca remains convinced City can compete with a side he regards as Europe’s strongest over the past two years.
“I think in the last two years they have been the best team in Europe, they won almost all the games in this competition in the last two years,” he said.
