Leonardo hits back at Tuchel, says PSG have a huge team

Paris Saint-Germain had no difficulties seeing off Angers in the opening game of the Ligue 1 weekend, but remarks by sporting director Leonardo after the 6-1 victory exposed smouldering problems within the club.

After the game on Friday night, in which Neymar, who scored twice, and Kylian Mbappe, who struck once, showed that the club’s stars can deliver, Leonardo spoke to journalists at the Parc des Princes and responded sharply to coach Thomas Tuchel’s criticism the day before of the club’s transfer activity.

Leonardo said that neither he nor the club “appreciated” Tuchel’s assertion that the PSG squad had been weakened since they reached the Champions League final in August.

“If someone is not happy, if he decides to stay, he must respect either the sports policy or the internal rules,” Leonardo said.

“You have to understand the moment we are all living through, these are very serious situations. Not understanding this situation, we didn’t like it. Now we’re going to address it internally.”

Tuchel complained on Thursday that the club had not done enough ahead of what promises to be an unusually demanding and compressed season. Leonardo responded that the problems created by the coronavirus extended beyond the playing field.

“Everybody has lost millions, it’s weird to talk about it. Nobody is buying , except in England, which is a world apart”, said Leonardo adding that the health crisis had cost PSG almost 100 million euros.

It was the first time that Leonardo has publicly criticised the coach, who he inherited when he took over in July 2019.

PSG won every domestic trophy available in France last season before losing narrowly to Bayern Munich in August’s Champions League final in Lisbon.

However, since the end of last season their captain Thiago Silva, all-time top scorer Edinson Cavani, right-back Thomas Meunier, striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and defensive starlet Tanguy Kouassi have left. Apart from making Mauro Icardi’s loan move from Inter Milan into a permanent transfer, the only new arrivals are right-back Alessandro Florenzi, on loan from Roma, and third-choice goalkeeper Alexandre Letellier.

Tuchel said he wanted new signings.

“If we stay like this we can’t speak about having the same objectives,” the German said.

“Perhaps we can do it but we can’t ask for the same things from such a reduced squad when we will have to fight with teams like Manchester City, Liverpool and Atletico Madrid, who have all been very strong in the transfer market.

Agence France-Presse