The third entry in the Phil Jones Cinematic Universe
Part III of II | Links to Part I, Part II
We need to go deeper. Even with Phil Jones as their lone striker, PSG still won (nearly) everything in sight. Could they literally play anybody up top and still romp home with the Ligue 1 title? I scour the Earth for somebody suitable. Joelinton? Even I'm not crazy enough to try that. And then it hits me. Kepa Arrizabalaga. He needs to get his confidence back, and to spend time away from the Chelsea goal. We can do both. A confidence-boosting season with a near-guaranteed title and goals aplenty. Kepa ✕ Paris-Saint Germain has begun.
A Continuation
Surprisingly, Kepa has had a decent season in goal for Chelsea, so they demand a hefty £55m fee for him. It barely makes a dent in PSG's transfer budget. Deal. Sadly I can't offer him any goal bonuses, but I throw in a load of clean sheet bonuses anyway, seeing as he's never going to earn them. Our new striker has arrived.
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Naturally this leaves me no choice but to transfer list Phil Jones – his opportunities will be extremely limited now, and I want to see him play regular football. Despite my best attempts there are no takers for Europe's top goalscorer, even if we offer to pay 90% of his wages. Things look bleak, until I hit upon the idea of offering him out on loan, with a requirement for him to be played up front. Just one team are mad enough to make an offer – Dijon (insert mustard-related joke here) – and Phil dutifully accepts the challenge. I tell sporting director Leonardo that his sole purpose in life now is to report on everything Phil Jones does.
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We're not done yet. After offloading Draxler we need another winger – Mohammed Salah seems a decent enough choice. With shedloads of cash still remaining, I bring in Bruno Fernandes as a rotation option, Corentin Tolisso for extra midfield depth, and João Cancelo as backup at right back. £369,000,000 well spent. We need to ensure Kepa has all the support he needs to become the next Phil Jones.
Tactics-wise, it's the same as last year. The default 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress, with no adjustments whatsoever. Kepa is handed penalty and free kick duties, and is set as the target for all our corners. He's actually not too bad at free kicks, so I attempt to train him on "attempting long range free kicks" – sadly he never manages to acquire this trait, nor does he gain any kind of familiarity with the centre forward role, but one can't have everything. Obviously no second tactic is trained – the Gegenpress is all we need.
Kepa Kepa Number 9
After a promising pre-season, scoring against Hannover and Eindhoven, I don't hesitate in naming our new number 9 in the starting line-up for the Trophée des Champions. And, following in the footsteps of Phil Jones the year before, Kepa can't get his hands on a medal either. We lose on penalties after a goalless draw. I don't blame Kepa at all – he scored his penalty in the shootout, only for Fernandes and Thiago Silva to let the side down…
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The bad start is immediately brushed aside as we beat Marseille in the Ligue 1 opener, before our false 1 opens his PSG account in a 1-1 draw against Strasbourg, heading in from an Alex Telles corner. This will turn out to be a familiar sight throughout the season…
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After narrow wins over a Phil Jones-spearheaded Dijon and Monaco, he returns to the scoresheet with a brace in a 4-0 win over Toulouse – heading in from a Neymar free kick before getting ahead of the defenders to tuck home a Fernandes cross. He also notches his first assist, en route to a Man of the Match performance, and is named up front in the Ligue 1 team of the week!
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Any thoughts that this early form would fizzle out are quashed in October. He scores five goals in our four games. Never mind the fact that three of them are penalties and the other two are headers from corners, his performances are enough to land him the Player of the Month award. And he doesn't stop there – a four-game goalscoring run into mid-December lands him the Ligue 1 Foreign Player of the Year award – Phil Jones eat your heart out!
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Strangely, despite his award-winning successes as a striker he's not entirely convinced, complaining that I'm playing him out of position. Thankfully he sees sense – the last thing we need is our top scorer to throw a tantrum.
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The Champions League
Obviously we're top of the league, with Kepa joint top goalscorer, at the halfway point. In fact, we're yet to lose a single domestic game since I took charge of the club, in either the cups or the league. With Phil Jones or Kepa up front. How much more of a handicap do we need to have to make this fair?
Unfortunately the same can't be said for the Champions League. Last season had been a slog, scraping through a tough group and edging past Real Madrid only to lose in the quarter finals. This year we need to do better. We're handed an easier group, the toughest fixture seeing Kepa return to face his old club Chelsea. I big hm up in the build-up, hoping he can bite the hand that used to feed him. It's not to be. We're soundly beaten 2-0 in both games, Kepa barely getting a look in.
Whereas Jones had taken time to adapt to the level of the Champions League, however, Kepa is quick to prove his worth. He scores in every other group fixture – a brace against Salzburg, one in each Trabzonspor fixture, and another in the return to Salzburg. The critics say that he doesn't get involved in open play; that he looks lost leading the line on his own; that he can barely pass or dribble; and that he only scores penalties and headers from corners. I stick my head in the sand and ignore them – we qualify from the group in second place, what more could anyone ask?
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Enough is Enough
After the winter break we start the new year as we left off – two comfortable wins in the Coupe de France and victory over Strasbourg in the league, Kepa missing two penalties but scoring in each fixture regardless. This is getting out of hand.
And then, disaster strikes. He twists his knee in training, ruling him out for five days! With an away trip to Dijon on the cards, I do the only logical thing – I replace him with reserve goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. The two line-ups speak for themselves – what have I turned League 1 into??
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And the unthinkable happens. I've gone too far this time, and I'm rightly punished for it. We sink to a 2-0 defeat, my first domestic loss, and our 58-game unbeaten run in the league is brought to an abrupt end.
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And just like London buses, after waiting 58 games for the first one, two come along at once… Despite the return of our Spanish talisman to the front line, we lose again, this time to an injury time goal against Monaco.
I don't expect things to continue like this. I change nothing, and naturally our vast superiority to everyone around us begins to click again. I'm a tactical genius. Kepa falls away a little bit from his earlier goalscoring prowess, but continues to chip in with the odd goal here and there, as we rack up the wins again and extend our Ligue 1 lead, thanks to emphatic performances from the likes of Fernandes, Mbappé, Silva, and Tolisso.
Phil Jones Update
As instructed, Leonardo has been keeping me updated on club favourite Phil Jones. Despite a promising pre-season, scoring three in five, his contribution has been mixed at best – the odd goal, but nothing approaching his 40-goal haul last year. Nevertheless, I'm glad Dijon are sticking to their promise of playing him up front, and his presence is obviously helping in some way, as they sit safely in mid-table. One thing Dijon cannot provide, however, is the world-leading physiotherapy centre I've established at PSG, and, rather inevitably, the inevitable happens.
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Defying the Odds
Our reward for qualifying for the Champions League knockout stages is… Real Madrid. Again! Somehow we'd knocked them out on away goals last year. Can we do the same again? We do even better. A Kepa masterclass in the first leg – two headed goals from corners, before assisting Fernandes for our third (who said Kepa couldn't pass?!), give us a 3-1 advantage for the return leg.
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With injuries slowly mounting up – Neymar, Marquinhos, Bernardo Silva, and Verratti all ruled out – I'm forced to only pick five substitutes and to play not-fully-fit players. And we get battered. But try as they might Real Madrid cannot score past our two goalkeeper strategy. And not only do we weather the storm, we steal two goals from our only two shots on target for a 5-1 aggregate win!
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It doesn't get any easier. We continue our Spanish odyssey with a tie against Barcelona, who must have learned from the mistakes of Real Madrid, as they nullify Kepa completely in both legs. In doing so, however, they leave space for Neymar, Mbappé, and even Salah to get us through to the semi-finals 4-3 on aggregate… Is this PSG's year at long last?
Kepa Giveth, Kepa Taketh Away
Despite his goal haul fast approaching 30 for the year, there are occasions when playing a goalkeeper up front appears to cause issues for the team.
The first major upset occurs in the semi-final of the Coupe de France. Goals from Neymar and Mbappé aren't enough, as we concede twice, and cannot turn our attacking domination into a winning goal, Kepa going missing for long periods of play. The game goes all the way to penalties. And our top scorer blazes wide of the post with the first kick. Fernandes misses again, and Di María adds to the woe. We're dumped out of the cup, and though Kepa will go on to be the competition's top scorer, it's another missed chance at silverware.
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It's at this point that I realise that there's no Coupe de la Ligue this year. I'd simply assumed we must've won our earlier rounds without noticing, but on actually checking the fixture list discover it's missing completely… My PA informs me the competition was stopped after last year. I'm gutted, for Kepa more than anything – it could've been another chance to increase his goal tally, and silverware too.
Our last chance at a double is in the Champions League. Man City stand between us and a European final. With the squad back at near full fitness, I pick our strongest lineup for the home leg – naturally skippered by Kepa. It's a terrible game, and looks to be headed for a goalless draw until we win a penalty in the 86th minute. A pivotal moment. Kepa has been poor from the spot in recent weeks, but I refuse to take penalty duty off him. He steps up, and hits it straight at Ederson…
It's a huge opportunity missed. I'm forced to defend his selection in the press conference. But I have faith in him. He keeps his place for the return leg. And he repays my faith by scything down Laporte in the 9th minute, picking up the first red card of his PSG career… In the Champions League semi-final.
All clouds have a silver lining – at least this gives us a chance to see if we actually need to have anybody up front at all in order to win. Phil Jones → Kepa → Nobody. It's a natural progression. I change nothing, and stick with our 4-2-3-0 formation. It's a disaster.
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The Road Home
In fact, the Man City games look to be part of a wider issue – including those fixtures we don't score a single goal for five games, losing 1-0 to Lyon and Nice, and drawing to Troyes. Kepa plays every minute, but I blame the lack of goals on his lack of service. Telles' corners seem to have gone off the boil, and our wingers all lose form at the same time. Even the penalties have dried up.
One player in particular who's been an utter disappointment this year has been Salah. Signed for £106m, he finishes the season with three goals and three assists. Playing in his favoured role on the right-hand side. I'd fully expected him to be one of our star players alongside Kepa and Mbappé. But it just isn't to be. It takes him until after Christmas to score his first goal, and despite playing in the majority of our games his contributions seem limited to amazing dribbles past multiple players only to pass the ball slowly to the opposition goalkeeper. Time and time again. With our defeat to Nice I decide enough is enough, and drop him from the squad altogether. Kepa deserves better.
We do eventually get back to winning ways, obviously retaining the Ligue 1 title – finishing only two points worse off than last year despite our four defeats – and there's time for Kepa to score one final penalty to bring him to a respectable 34 goals for the season. Despite this, he's still unhappy about being played out of position…
Season Review – Awards and Stats
And with that, the season draws to a close. Whilst we retain the Ligue 1 title, we're unable to go a second season unbeaten, with disappointing shootout defeats in both the Trophée des Champions and the Coupe de France. But it's not all bad – we did manage to go one step further in the Champions League, and even then only lost after being reduced to ten men early on. In another timeline Kepa scores the penalty, doesn't get sent off, and carries us to European glory. Oh what could have been…
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The PSG fans pick Alex Telles as their Player of the Season, having racked up a record number of assists, mostly through corners onto Kepa's head. They do add Kepa to the PSG Best Eleven, but – channelling their inner Garth Crooks' Team of the Week – put our top goalscorer in net.
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In fact, Kepa's positioning seems to cause a great headache for the awards bodies, nobody quite sure what to make of the 34-goal goalkeeper. He's voted as the best goalkeeper in the Champions League, despite finishing only one behind top-scorer Cristiano Ronaldo, and tops Ligue 1 for fewest goals conceded – with zero. Sadly his form fading towards the end of the year costs him any chance of the Ligue 1 top scorer award, finishing eight behind Ben Yedder, and five off the target Phil Jones set last year.
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And what of Phil Jones? Dijon, pleasingly, stuck to their promise to play him as a striker – and were rewarded with five goals and one assist, with a 15th-placed finish in the league. Some might say that's a disappointment, but from my reckoning it's his second best ever season as a footballer. The conversion to a striker has done the lad good.
And what lessons do we take from all this nonsense and disrespect to French football? Well, that PSG could play a goalkeeper up front and still coast to the league, only lose in the cup on penalties, and reach the Champions League semi-finals. Compared to Phil Jones, however, there's no competition. Despite reaching a similar number of goals, Kepa's contribution in open play was near-non-existent, and were it not for his godlike prowess at corners we'd have struggled much more. Phil actually linked up with his teammates, put pressure on the opposition back line, and scored from outside the six-yard box. Kepa… not so much. Even his direct free kicks were a disappointment – despite being rated as vastly superior to Jones in that department, he scored a grand total of zero.
All that being said, you can't fault Kepa too much, moving to a new country and playing way out of position, he still managed to put in a phenomenal shift - after all, how often do goalkeepers get 9.5/10 match ratings multiple times a season?!
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