PSG win 12th straight league game and topple Spurs 58 year old record

Paris St Germain stand 11 points clear at the top of Ligue Un after beating Liile 2-1 on Friday night. Goals from Kylian Mbappe and Neymar had put them in the clear before a late penalty consolation or the visitors scored by Nicolas Pepe.

The win took PSG to a maximum 36 points from 12 games, 11 ahead of Lille now in third and Montepellier above them on goal difference, as 47,549 watched on at the Parc des Princes. The nationalities of the PSG starting XI read like a who’s who of world football, France, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium, with Mbappe the only Frenchman.

At 19 years, 10 months and 13 days, he became the youngest player to reach 40 Ligue 1 goals since 1973.

It was their fifth straight win over Lille. and they set a new record for the best start ever to one of Europe’s top five leagues, beating the 11 wins set by double winning Tottenham Hotspur in 1960/61.

PSG have scored 41 goals in the 12 matches conceding just seven. 27 of those are second half goals.

Juventus with ten wins and a draw come closest among the bigger leagues but PSV Eindhoven can match the with 11 straight wins and a goal difference of 39-4. PSV though had seven Dutch starters in their 1-0 win over Vitesse at the weekend.

 

On Tuesday though, PSG play one of their most important games of the year when they visit Napoli in the Champions League. The southern Italians are a point ahead of them and left France with a 2-2 draw in the opening match between the two. It could have been worse for PSG as they need a stoppage time Angel Di Maria goal to take even a point and a Mario Rui own goal to equalise the first time.

Napoli also have group punch bags Red Star at home to come while PSG host Liverpool.

So for all the suave and ease with which they are strolling to the Ligue Un title, critics may be sharpening their knives to judge PSG’s season a failure as early as Wednesday morning.