Vitinha impressed Arsene Wenger with his performance against Borussia Dortmund (Picture: Getty)
Arsene Wenger criticised Paris Saint-Germain for going into their Champions League semi-final second leg against Borussia Dortmund with the wrong ‘pace, attitude and approach’, claiming Vitinha was the only player to ‘perform’ for Luis Enrique’s side.
Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, PSG gave themselves a mountain to climb as they allowed an unmarked Mats Hummels to head home and double Dortmund’s advantage from Julian Brandt’s corner in the 50th minute.
PSG did improve after Hummels’ header but Dortmund dug deep to preserve their lead, despite the hosts rattling the woodwork four times as they sought a route back into the tie.
Dortmund, who sit fifth in the Bundesliga table this season, must wait to learn their opponents for this year’s Champions League final at Wembley, with Bayern Munich and Real Madrid resuming their battle this evening after an absorbing 2-2 draw at the Allianz Arena.
Victory for Bayern would set up an all-German final and a repeat of the 2013 showpiece – which was also held at England’s national stadium.
Tuesday’s result at the Parc des Princes means PSG’s long wait for Champions League glory goes on, with the Ligue 1 giants coming close in 2020 before falling at the final hurdle in a 1-0 defeat to Bayern.
Reflecting on PSG’s lacklustre display against Dortmund on beIN SPORTS, ex-Arsenal manager Wenger felt Enrique’s men relied too heavily on individual moments of brilliance from the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele.
‘I would say at that level you have the facts and the fact is that in two games Paris Saint-Germain didn’t score a goal,’ Wenger explained.
Hummels scored the only goal of the game in Paris (Picture: Getty)
‘And then you have the explanations. One of the explanations is that they hit the bar and the post. But another one tonight is that it took them 45 minutes to play at the pace of a Champions League game.
‘When you play at home in a game like that, you need from the first minute on to put the opposing team under pressure because if you don’t do that, which happened there, when you are losing 1-0, you concede a goal on a corner and you’re basically out.
‘I believe tonight that Paris Saint-Germain did not go into the game with the right pace, the right attitude, the right approach and then I would say they relied a little too much on individuals to do something special.’
Mbappe had an off night at the Parc des Princes (Picture: Getty)
According to Wenger, Vitinha was the only PSG player who ‘performed’ and caused Dortmund any serious problems on the night.
‘Only Vitinha in midfield performed tonight and produced all the good balls,’ he added.
‘After that it was down to individual actions, to Dembele and Mbappe, and that’s what happened.
‘It will be a huge disappointment because, at the end of the day, Paris Saint-Germain goes out against team number five in the Bundesliga.’
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Wenger believes Dortmund will even have surprised themselves after emerging from a tough group – with PSG, AC Milan and Newcastle – to make it all the way to this year’s final.
‘Everybody wanted to play Dortmund but sometimes, in the Champions League, just to catch the form in the right moment is important,’ he went on.
‘Dortmund goes through a good patch and they are in a final. I think even they did not expect it.’
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