Yılmaz returns to Paris with Monaco on the brink
Hüseyin Yılmaz, who spent eleven seasons at Paris Saint-Germain, comes back to the Parc on a night when Monaco need something to arrest five straight league defeats.
Fifth place, twenty-five points from fourteen games, and a run of two defeats and two draws in their last four: Paris Saint-Germain's season has been one of quiet drift, and the visit of Monaco on 3 December is the sort of derby that can either steady a campaign or deepen its unease. Monaco, ninth with nineteen points, have lost five league games in a row. They arrive needing a result, any result, to stop the slide.
Hüseyin Yılmaz, who gave eleven seasons and 105 goals to the Parisians, is expected to start on the left of a Monaco midfield that also includes Boubacar Fall, tired after recent exertions. Paris are without the injured pair of Josh Manning and Gruff French, but their own tired legs — Jameleddine Harti, Billy Lasprilla — mean the expected 4-3-3 will need all its elegance. The duel between Merouane Mokrani's pace and Maxime Goncalves's tackling will be the one to watch. Last January, Monaco won here 3-2; the year before, Paris won 3-2 in Monaco. Beauty and nerve, then, as ever between these two.