🇫🇷 PSG 2022/23: Can Galtier deliver the holy grail to Paris? | OneFootball

It’s a new season for Paris Saint-Germain with a new coach and some new faces but, perhaps more importantly, all the old faces too.

Transfers 🔁

In:  Vitinha (Porto, €41.5m), Nuno Mendes (Sporting CP, €38m), Nordi Mukiele (RB Leipzig, €12m), Hugo Ekitite (Stade Reims, loan)

Out: Alphonse Areola (West Ham, €9.3m), Marcin Bulka (Nice, €2m), Ángel di María (Juventus, free), Xavi Simons (PSV, free), Colin Dagba (Strasbourg, loan)

Transfer balance: -€80.2m

Key fixtures 📆

🔑 Key player: Kylian Mbappé

Keeping hold of Mbappé was probably the best bit of transfer business PSG could have hoped for this summer, and they were right to celebrate it.

With the 23-year-old now committed until 2025, the uncertainty which hung over the club last season is a thing of the past, and 2022/23 represents a new chapter for everyone.

Mbappé is already one of the very best players in the world and he will only improve with age, which is a frightening prospect for the rest of Europe.

And the early signs in pre-season suggest Mbappé’s understanding with Lionel Messi and Neymar is getting stronger, while the signing of Hugo Ekitité may be one for the future but also one which should start to bear fruit immediately.

What has changed since last season? 🤔

After being given his marching orders last month, Mauricio Pochettino gave an insight earlier this week into exactly where PSG’s priorities lie, if there was ever any doubt.

“The obsession is the Champions League and everything that is not winning the Champions League is synonymous with failure,” said Pochettino.

The man tasked with delivering the holy grail to Paris is Christophe Galtier, who guided Lille to an unexpected Ligue 1 title in 2020/21 before finishing fifth with Nice last season.

Galtier is undoubtedly a canny operator who coaches his teams to play attractive football and knows Ligue 1 inside out, but whether he is the man to help PSG take the next step in the Champions League remains to be seen.

The 10-time French champions have reportedly hired a sports psychologist this summer to help them over that particular hump, and it surely can’t hurt.

But given how many top quality teams there are around Europe, it’s difficult for any club to make solid plans to win the Champions League, and Les Parisiens’ “obsession” with that particular trophy could well be Galtier’s downfall too.

Predicted XI 🔮

(3-4-3) — Donnarumma; Ramos, Marquinhos, Kimpembe; Hakimi, Verratti, Vitinho, Mendes; Neymar, Messi, Mbappé

Where will they finish? 🏆

Ligue 1: 1st Champions League: Runners-up Coupe de France: Winners