Julien Laurens with an interesting piece on PSG’s front four:
Maybe the key for Tuchel is actually in the midfield and finding the right combination of players to back the all-star quartet. Marquinhos and Verratti? Idrissa Gueye and Verratti? Gueye and Marquinhos? Room for Leandro Paredes, even? Against Monaco, the pairing of Verratti and Gueye showed its limitations. Neither of them is a natural holding midfielder, and to protect the Paris back four, Tuchel needs a player who stays deep and sits in front of the defence. In the first meeting with Saint-Etienne game, Marquinhos and Paredes were the two defensive midfielders, and they certainly have a more defensive profile than both Verratti and Gueye. The better balance of defensive discipline and playmaking is probably Verratti with Marquinhos, but whoever plays there will need some help from the front four tracking back.
This is a unique perspective from Laurens. Rather than debate whether all four should start, why not play the best combination of midfielders who can protect the defence without sacrificing the potency of the attack. My only rebuttal to this point is that PSG’s opponents in the Champions League round of 16 are Borussia Dortmund. Lucien Favre’s men have been so defensively poor this season, that even lower half teams in the Bundesliga have been able to score against them easily. If Tuchel wants to put winning first, any three out of four should be more than a handful for Dortmund’s troubled defence. Playing an open system unnecessarily gives Dortmund a greater chance, and if PSG’s recent European history is anything to go by, even the whiff of a chance for their opponents could derail them.