Paris Saint-Germain’s Ousmane Dembele said his team needed to learn not to switch off in big games after almost collapsing against Aston Villa in their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday, and called on his teammates to avoid making the same mistake in the last four.
“You have to be demanding especially in matches like these. We made the task difficult for ourselves, even if Aston Villa put us under a lot of pressure,” Dembele told French broadcaster Canal Plus after PSG lost 3-2 on the night in the second leg, but squeezed through to the semi-finals 5-4 on aggregate.
“They have good players too but I think we made life really difficult for ourselves, especially in the second half where we completely went off the boil.”
The French champions traveled to England leading 3-1 from last week’s first leg in Paris, and appeared to have completely killed off the series as they found themselves 2-0 ahead on the night inside the opening half an hour.
Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes both scored for the visitors at Villa Park, but a deflected Youri Tielemans effort gave the hosts a glimmer of hope before half-time.
John McGinn and Ezri Konsa then both netted in the space of two minutes early in the second half, leaving PSG to hang on grimly at times to their narrow lead.
“We thought we were better than we are,” admitted Dembele. “At 2-1 we thought we were already qualified, that the series was over. But this is what the Champions League is like. You can come up against teams, especially when they are at home with a heated crowd like that, who can turn games around. So we need to be more demanding of ourselves in the semifinals.”
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