PSG vs Arsenal preview: With the Parc des Princes in transition, the Gunners' chances could not be better

PSG are a team in transition as Unai Emery struggles to implement his own unique footballing vision within the French capital

Paris Saint-Germain away should be the hardest game of Arsenal's Champions League group stage, but there has never been an easier time to play them.

PSG are a team in transition, not that Marco Verratti accepts that phrase, since they replaced Laurent Blanc with Unai Emery this summer. They are ambitiously aiming to re-direct the whole ethos of the club away from big-money glamour, towards more traditional football values. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Luiz, their two most recognisable stars, have gone. They have been replaced by low-key, low-maintenance players, and Hatem Ben Arfa.

This type of re-boot is always difficult. Years of habits and assumptions have been thrown out along with Blanc, Ibrahimovic and Luiz. This is no longer meant to be a club in thrall to reputations and celebrity. It is meant to re-built on the same principles that won Emery three Europa Leagues at Sevilla, but re-wiring an environment like that does not happen overnight.

Emery is ferociously demanding of his players and they are still learning about how he wants them to play. He has been learning which players he can trust, and the evidence so far has not exactly been heartening. He is under pressure already, from the fans and the press, all of those who doubt that his methods will work here. He looked rattled at his press conference at the Parc des Princes on Monday afternoon, switching between his native Spanish and faltering French when asked difficult questions.

The problem is that this is a very difficult club to measure success. PSG’s dominance of Ligue 1 in the last few seasons has been laughable. They won last year’s title, their fourth in a row, by 31 points. And yet after a comfortable start to the season they have taken just one point from their last two games. After beating Bastia and Metz, they lost their third game, 3-1 at Monaco. David Luiz gave away a penalty with a ludicrous tackle, in one of his final actions for the club.

Then, on Friday, PSG hosted St Etienne at the Parc des Princes, the type of fixture they used to win with their eyes closed last season. They struggled to string anything together in a dismal first half, eventually took the lead, and then conceded an equaliser in the last minute. That type of result is anathema to PSG, and Emery had to take the blame himself.

“I am responsible for this result,” Emery said afterwards. “I have to keep working on our tactics and style. When the team is playing with more confidence, with a stronger identity, then things will go better.”

Unai Emery speaking at his press conference (Getty)

Teaching players a new style takes time though, especially when it is as radically different from the one that they were used to. Blanc’s PSG used to walk through games, playing their one-paced possession football. It was a perfectly good method for winning a league they financially dominated, and Blanc won three Ligue 1 titles by comfortable margins.

But it bred a softness and complacency that meant that when they came up against an opponent stronger than they were used to, Manuel Pellegrini’s Manchester City, they made too many mistakes and collapsed. That 3-2 aggregate defeat to a poor City side was what cost Blanc his job.

That is why Emery is trying to drill his players in a new way of working, the hard-running counter-attacking style that won those three consecutive Europa League titles with Sevilla. Layvin Kurzawa has been one of the main beneficiaries, replacing Maxwell at left-back, but he admitted he had been taken aback by what Emery had demanded from him.

“I was surprised to hear what he wanted,” Kurzawa said. “I know he wanted to play with the full-backs pushed up high, but I didn’t expect us to be as high as that. It’s a new system and us players have to get it into our heads. He also told me to work harder, and I run 12km per match. My job at PSG is really about attacking, more than defending. He told me ‘go on, and don’t worry if there’s someone behind you.’”

The problem is that players do not naturally trust a new manager’s methods if they do not quickly get results. As Marco Verratti put it, PSG are not a club who can have transitional seasons. Emery said at his press conference that he needed time to win over his players, but admitted that is the one thing he has least of. “In football, you don’t have much time,” he said. “I need confidence as well. Confidence is spread around between the players, spread within the squad. I'm very busy in my work, but I'm absolutely convinced we are going to improve.”

Emery did well at Valenica and Sevilla but knows that he is in a different world now. All he has to fall back on is his work there, and the hope that his ethos is enough to turn this huge club around. “I am a coach, Unai Emery, with experience,” he insisted, not words any manager should ever have to say. “My experience tells me that my demands, and my values of winning, are exactly the same as when I started out 12 years ago.”