As the Ligue 1 leaders try to stem their slide, Christophe Galtier, the coach of Paris Saint-Germain, is facing mounting pressure ahead of Saturday’s game against Nice, where he previously played.
PSG leads the French standings by six points, although their lead was double digits before back-to-back losses at home just after the most recent international break.
PSG has lost eight of their 18 games in 2023 after losing by scores of 2-0 to Rennes, 1-0 to mid-table Lyon, and 2-0 to Rennes.
The Parisians are now just six points clear of both Lens and Marseille at the summit as they chase what would be a French record 11th league title, and a ninth in 12 years under Qatari ownership.
The prospect of PSG failing to win the title still appears slim, but they have a home meeting with Lens coming up after Saturday’s visit to the Cote d’Azur, difficult fixtures in which Galtier can ill afford to slip up.
Widely-read sports daily L’Equipe this week reported that Galtier would be playing for his job in these games, with the club’s football advisor Luis Campos and president Nasser al-Khelaifi prepared to change the coach if the club’s grip on the top of the table were seriously threatened.
“We are wasting our trump cards with each game that goes by, but I am not giving up. I will fight until the end,” said Galtier, who has a two-year contract, last weekend. “There needs to be a reaction of champions.”
Already out of the Champions League and French Cup, PSG will be wary of a Nice team unbeaten in 14 matches since ex-Paris midfielder Didier Digard took over as coach in January.
Nice are also France’s sole surviving European representative and have a Europa Conference League quarter-final against Swiss club Basel coming up.