Ousmane Dembélé’s positioning crucial to PSG’s victory over Real Sociedad

The headlines as always when Paris Saint-Germain play were about Kylian Mbappé (25), as the club triumphed 2-1 (4-1 on aggregate) over Real Sociedad to progress to the Champions League quarter-finals. 

How could they not? The forward was in scintillating form on the pitch as he scored twice to shatter La Real’s hopes that they could mount their own Remontada and dump PSG out of Europe. Off the pitch, Luis Enrique once again fanned the flames as he seemed to confirm that this would be the Frenchman’s last season at his hometown club. 

A statement that ensured that the conversation would remain firmly rooted on the wantaway star and the drama that has enveloped the player and club ahead of his scheduled departure at the end of the season. Mbappé himself did little to distract from this when he suggested that it was true that he had problems, but that none of them were with his manager. 

And yet all of this noise meant that something was missed in the coverage of the game, something that should be acknowledged and be widely celebrated as a statement performance: the understated brilliance of Ousmane Dembélé (26). 

Dembélé has hardly put a foot wrong since he joined PSG in the summer from Barcelona, the largest complaint for a professional who seems to be perpetually stuck as a club’s go-to replacement for Neymar (32) is that he has nowhere near the same goalscoring record as his two-time predecessor. 

The winger has only scored once, his lone goal coming against AS Monaco in a 5-2 drubbing earlier in the season, while Neymar had eighteen across all competitions during his final year in Paris. This would be a greater cause for concern if not for the fact that Luis Enrique has not used Dembélé as an orthodox winger. 

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