Patrick Vieira answered questions from the media following his side’s defeat against Paris Saint-Germain. Extracts.

Paradoxically, it was your best performance in attack…

Yes, but there were a lot of mistakes defensively, even though tactically we were well set-up. We wanted to force them wide. When you look at the goals that we conceded, you can see a lack of aggression. Against Paris Saint-Germain and players like Mbappé, you can’t get away with that. From then on, it made things more complicated. I liked the way we played, I think we played with a lot of personality, trying to respect the philosophy we have put in place in the last few years. We were very dangerous, we created a lot of great chances and Navas had a great game. But unfortunately, this lack of agression and the errors at the back have cost us dearly. The second goal that we conceded hurt us, but we had the chance to get back to 2-1. We knew that it was going to become more difficult physically in the final quarter of an hour, and at 2-1, we could have had that chance to score. But we came up against a very good side with a player that was able to make the difference.

Are there differences between the conditions of your players?

Yes, some players aren’t yet at their best, but they will continue to work and will improve.

What is your team missing?

We saw it again today: when we see the quality of the players we played against, I would have liked to put them under more pressure, to be more agressive. We gave them too much respect: when these players have the ball and aren’t under pressure, it’s very difficult to defend.

Kylian Mbappé caused Youcef Atal problems.

Youcef hasn’t played for 8 months. He needs to continue to train and get minutes under his belt in order to get back to his level. He had some problems today, but he was up against one of the best players in the world. He also lacked a bit of support from Marco (Rony Lopes) and Khephren (Thuram) because the objective was to go 2 against 1 and to be agressive. We will see tomorrow the state of play with his injury, which is a muscular injury.

You brought on several young players. Alexis Trouillet wasn’t one of them. What is he lacking?

Alexis is continuing to progress and working. He will get his opportunity. Today, it was a choice, tomorrow it will certainly be another.

Did your players take their feet off the pedal on the hour mark?

No, I didn’t feel that at all. The players tried to play, to press. We lacked that agression but the players didn’t give up, even at 3-0, they tried to go and get a goal. The players that came on brought something. In terms of attitude, spirit, I can’t criticise them. That’s really what we were missing, the agression to put them in greater difficulty defensively. It’s something that we need to take into account when we sign a player because it’s one of the characteristics of the players.

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