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PSG always struggle against Monaco

The hosts were devastated by being knocked out of the Champions League, while the away coach for the first time in the season has two of his biggest stars available: Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Angelo di Maria

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Monaco will want to forget last week as soon as possible. Everything in those seven days has been focused onto the second leg of the Champions League qualifications against Valencia. Despite playing with a colorful line-up, Monaco managed to take a point in Toulouse, but they didn't manage to catch up with the loss from Mestalla in the European competition. Monaco won, but the final 2-1 wasn't enough.

- Of course we're sad, but playing in the group phase of the Europa League is not the end of the world since we're talking about a good championship. However, we're not thinking about Europe anymore because we're up for a big match against PSG in which we have to return our damaged confidence. It's important to answer in the right manner against a strong rival - said midfielder Jeremy Toulalan before the arrival of the strongest French team. We should mention that in the last four championship head-to-heads Paris didn't beat Monaco (author's note: all four head-to-heads in the championship since Monaco returned into the league ended with a draw, and PSG won only at the start of this year in the cup).

Coach Leonardo Jardim still can't count on Joao Moutinho and Helder Costa who are injured, and for today's match Nabil Dirar is also out. The standard midfielder Dirar lightly injured his ankle in one practice, and he will have to pause for two to three days, which is enough for missing today's derby.

In the three rounds so far, Paris has maximum efficiency, and they still didn't concede a single goal. Parisians managed all of that without their two most sound names, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Angelo di Maria. They didn't thrill anyone with their games so far, but they've been doing the job routinely.

Coach Laurent Blanc is also aware their game is not brilliant:

- So far we tried to justify ourselves with individual quality, but we have to advance a lot of segments in our game against Monaco. We weren't good in ball possession control against Montpellier, and we also lacked sharpness and precision in the offense. Those are two key aspects of the game we need to improve. If we manage that, we'll be really good.

There are a couple of news for the away team's line-up. Two of the biggest ones are Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Anlego di Maria. It's questionable whether those two will start from the first minute, but they should get some game time. Three days ago PSG brought in left back Layvin Kurzawa from their opponents today, but he won't play against his former club because of a light injury. Argentinian Javier Pastore also lightly injured himself this week and will miss the derby.