Quite a lot of whines as PSG beat Bordeaux to go 15 points clear in Ligue 1

The ho-hum of Ligue 1 returned on Sunday afternoon for a Paris Saint-Germain team humiliated on Wednesday night in Madrid in the last-16 of the Uefa Champions League.

Mauricio Pochettino's Ligue 1 pacesetters beat bottom-of-the-table Bordeaux 3-0 to go 15 points clear of second-placed Nice with 10 games remaining.

The match at the Parc des Princes was always going to be viewed through the prism of the debacle in the Spanish capital.

From 2-0 up on aggregate, PSG - containing Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar, shipped three goals to exit a competition their owners have craved since acquiring the club in 2011.

Jeers
Four days on from the meltdown at the Santiago Bernabeu, the PSG faithful perhaps came intent on brooking no overtures to forgiveness

Messi and Neymar - increasingly viewed as show ponies - were booed every time they received the ball.

Feeding on the animosity, Bordeaux started brightly.

Remi Oudin cracked a shot from just outside the penalty area which brought a save from the PSG goalkeeper Keylor Navas down to his left.

Jean Onana's header from the resulting corner narrowly missed the target.

Bordeaux continued to hustle and harry refusing to provide easy meat for the league leaders.

Opener
But midway through the first-half, they were sliced open.

Messi - showing commendable concentration and fortitude in the adversity - threaded a ball to Georginio Wijnaldum who slipped a pass to Mbappé.

The France international - one of the few PSG players to emerge with any credit from the Champions League games against Madrid - rifled in his 15th Ligue 1 goal of the season.

It was his 26th of what PSG bosses fear will be his last campaign with the club.

Neymar added the second following Hakimi's centre from the right after he was played in by Messi. A muted celebration followed.

Joy
There was a tad more joy after 61 minutes when Leandro Parades scored the third even though Messi and Neymar had played a part in the build-up to the strike.

From there, PSG merely knocked the ball around to run down the clock towards an eighth title in 10 years.

Such dominance would doubtless thrill the faithful at most clubs but such has been PSG's obsession with the Champions League that feats of domestic consistency have been seemingly downplayed and denigrated. 

A 20th victory in 28 games of the 2021/2022 season was greeted at just before 3pm with barely any smiles on the field and scant pageant in the stands.

Tellingly, the PSG players failed to go en masse to acknowledge their fans as has been their wont.

A few did make the journey to the Auteuil stand housing the diehards.

They might well need a few glasses of the juice from the vineyards around Bordeaux to cope with the reactions.