Five players will go into Wednesday night’s Champions League game between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United knowing a booking will sideline them from the first leg of the quarter-finals should their side progress. Ashley Young is the only United player at risk of suspension for the next match in the unlikely event that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side reach the last eight, while PSG have four players one booking away from a one-game ban.
Juan Bernat, Julian Draxler, Thilo Kehrer and Marco Verratti have all picked up two bookings over the competition’s opening seven games and a third will rule them out of their next game. Neymar, Nemanja Matic, Ander Herrera and Antonio Valencia are also a yellow card away from a suspension but all four players won’t feature at the Parc des Princes as they are injured.
Pending suspensions expire at the end of the season so Young will not be banned for United’s opening group game next season should they exit against PSG and qualify for next season’s competition with a top four Premier League finish. Yellow cards are wiped ahead of the semi-final stage of the competition. United are aiming to become the first team in Champions League knock-out history to overturn a two-goal deficit when playing away in the second leg and Solskjaer is confident in his side’s chances.
United are aiming to become the first team in Champions League knock-out history to overturn a two-goal deficit when playing away in the second leg and Solskjaer is confident in his side’s chances. “It’s a difficult task but we can do it,” Solskjaer said. “Obviously we need the first goal and we need to stay in the game until there is half-an-hour left and one goal in it, then anything can happen. But we need a good plan, it needs to be put in place and we need to perform on the night, because they are a team full of quality.”
“Of course everyone knows we have done it and results in Champions League in the last few years, I don’t wanna call it strange, but last year Juventus lost 3-0 at home against Real Madrid and suddenly they were 3-0 up at after 90 minutes against Madrid away.
“The year before that, PSG against Barcelona, we remember those results. So there are so many examples of teams who can change results like this. Also, as a club we’ve done it so many times, the players have been fantastic away from home, beaten Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, which has given us the belief we can do this as well.”