Despite celebrating a second unbeaten home league campaign in four years, Paris Saint-Germain slumped to a 2-2 draw with ES Troyes AC, who overturned a two-goal deficit to all but guarantee a consecutive Ligue 1 campaign for the first time in 15 years.
Such are the expectations put on the capital giants that their tenth league success has done little to ease the growing pressure on Mauricio Pochettino, who almost saw his side trail when Abdu Conté stabbed an early free-kick wide. Duly punished for that miss, Bruno Irles’ side found themselves behind soon after, when Marquinhos converted a precise cross from Ángel Di María in the sixth minute.
A second PSG goal soon followed, as Erik Palmer-Brown clumsily brought down Mbappé inside the area. Neymar dispatched the resulting penalty to double PSG’s lead, and ensure his side had scored two or more goals in a tenth straight H2H. After Lionel Messi hit the post and Neymar had a goal ruled out for offside, the expected landslide seemed certain, but some generous defending from PSG either side of the break saw Troyes pull level.
Firstly, Ike Ugbo became the first beneficiary on the half-hour mark, when he pounced on a misplaced pass from Nuno Mendes to halve the deficit with a clinical finish past Keylor Navas. With Troyes in the ascendancy Florian Tardieu equalised four minutes after the restart with a brave panenka penalty, after Presnel Kimpembe fouled Renaud Ripart inside the area to underline PSG’s defensive vulnerabilities.
Teed-up by Mbappé, Neymar looked to have converted a winner for PSG, but saw his strike chalked off by a lengthy VAR check. That decision meant Troyes held onto a valuable draw, which makes automatic relegation now a mathematical impossibility, and puts them a maximum of four points away from guaranteed safety.
