Aston Villa will be aiming to continue their run in the Champions League as they come up against French giants Paris Saint-Germain but the Ligue 1 side have been handed a controversial boost
Paris Saint-Germain have been handed a huge boost for their crunch Champions League clash with Aston Villa after a controversial fixture change. The French side face the Premier League outfit in the quarter-finals of the competition after progressing past Liverpool.
PSG beat the Reds on penalties, while Unai Emery’s men found a way past Club Brugge. The first leg of the resultant quarter-final meeting is due to take place on April 9 at the Parc des Princes. The second leg is then scheduled for six days later at Villa Park, where Villa will be hoping to do enough to progress to the semi finals. Before that, PSG were meant to be in Ligue 1 action with a clash against Nantes on April 13.
That game has however now been rescheduled following a request from the reigning French champions. Nantes were initially expected to turn down that request but have since gone through with it despite complaints from manager Antoine Kombouare.
Speaking at the weekend, he said: “I stopped fighting battles you can’t win. The only condition we set is to be able to play the derby on Friday to give us more time to recover.”
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PSG’s game with Nantes has now been moved to April 22, with the latter seeing their schedule left in chaos. They are currently in the middle of a two-week pause due to the international break.
Their next game against Le Havre comes up at the end of the month, just days ahead of a clash with Nice. They then have another two-week break ahead of a showdown with Rennes, which has also been moved, with PSG coming up at the end of that run.
While there have been scheduling changes for PSG, the same cannot be said of their upcoming opponents Villa. The Midlands side take on struggling Southampton in the Premier League between the two legs.
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Villa boss Unai Emery is already relishing the chance to come up against his former side in the Champions League. He said: “We are very excited and very motivated. PSG showed their capacity against Liverpool who were the best team in Europe until yesterday.
“It is a huge challenge for the club, coaches, supporters and me. It is special because I haven’t come back since I left there. I haven’t been back to Paris since then and I will visit there playing against them. It will be fantastic. We are going to try and analyse our strengths and identify their weakness.”
Villa have already been handed a huge boost ahead of the trip to the French capital. In form forward Marco Asensio is able to play despite being on loan from PSG.
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