Laurent Blanc admits that his Paris Saint-Germain side were found wanting in their defeat against Barcelona last night.
Barcelona ran rings around PSG to register a comfortable 3-1 win in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie at the Parc des Princes.
The Catalan giants dominated possession, created more chances and only an own goal by Jeremy Mathieu gave some hope to the French champions ahead of the second leg next week.
Blanc admits that it was tough night for the Parisians and stressed that for a team that is used to dominating possession, it was difficult for them to chase the ball around for the 90 minutes.
PSG were also missing a few key players and Thiago Silva had to be taken off after just 20 minutes with an injury but the Frenchman was not ready to provide excuses for their below-par performance.
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“It was certainly hard for us tonight”, Blanc told UEFA
“When your style is to have the ball and then you don't have it, you suffer. We're not used to running for the ball. Moreover, physically, we were not at our best and we lost players to injury.
“There was a lot for us to overcome if we were to get a result, but I don't want to speak about the absent players.”
However, Blanc is still confident about their chances in the second leg at the Nou Camp but stressed that they need to improve a lot to give themselves an opportunity to overturn the odds at Barcelona next week.
“In the return leg, Paris will be a different team. We'll have suspended players back [Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marco Verratti] and though I'm not sure about our injured players yet, the main thing is that we'll have to show we're better than we were tonight.
“Tonight I was just very disappointed.”
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