PSG fail to clinch French title

NANTES, France: Paris Saint-Germain failed to the seal the Ligue 1 football title for the third match running on Wednesday after a second-string line-up without dropped Kylian Mbappe took the champions to their second defeat in a matter of days, 3-2 at Nantes.

A Diego Carlos brace and Majeed Waris’ tap-in inflicted a third league loss on Thomas Tuchel’s side, who were hammered 5-1 at second-placed Lille on Sunday and drew with Strasbourg the previous week, despite Dani Alves’ stunning opener and substitute Metehan Guclu pulling one back late on.

However PSG, who were also missing a host of other first-team players through injuries and suspension, remain 17 points clear with six games left.The runaway leaders will win their sixth title in seven years on Sunday if Lille fail to win at Toulouse and they then beat struggling Monaco.

Tuchel refused to reveal if he left Mbappe out of the squad for blasting his teammates for “lacking personality” after the Lille loss, saying that there would be “no explanation” of his decision.

“It’s very easy to analyse, it was a very bad performance, we deserved to lose,” said Tuchel.“We controlled the game at Lille but today there was no performance for 90 minutes.“You can lose and you can make mistakes, and we will always defend the players if we feel that they’ve played with a great attitude and hunger. But today it is not possible.”

Depleted PSG had to thank Gianluigi Buffon 12 minutes in when he managed to push away Kalifa Coulibaly’s header from point-blank range, and seven minutes later Alves appeared to have calmed Parisian nerves with his wonder strike.

There looked to be little on when the Brazilian collected Leandro Paredes’ simple pass, but he quickly lashed an unstoppable dipping drive past Maxime Dupe to score his first Ligue 1 goal this season.