Saint-Etienne - Paris Saint Germain preview - Beckham: It's not easy for PSG

Posted Saturday, January 24, 2015 by PA

David Beckham has sympathy with former club Paris St Germain's travails in Ligue 1 this season.

PSG have won the title the last two seasons and were hot favourites to make it a hat-trick.

But this campaign has not been straightforward and Laurent Blanc's side go into Sunday's clash against St Etienne in third place, four points behind leaders Lyon.

Beckham, who finished his career in the French capital, told The Ligue 1 Show on BeIN Sports: "You don't realise until you play there but the league is very difficult to win.

"At Paris St Germain they have some great players, a good manager and an unbelievable fan-base. So I hope they go on to win the league this year again. But it's always tough."

PSG might have slipped up again last weekend when they were pegged back to 2-2 by Evian but they recovered to win 4-2 before seeing off Bordeaux in the Coupe de France in midweek.

Blanc told reporters after the 2-1 win: "The essential thing was to qualify, which we did. So we can be happy with that."

Sunday's match is likely to be another stiff test, with St Etienne a point and a place behind PSG.

Les Verts are unbeaten in 12 league games and will be looking for revenge after a 5-0 thumping in the reverse fixture in August as well as defeat in the Coupe de la Ligue.

St Etienne suffered two injury blows this week, with Moustapha Bayal Sall and Kevin Monnet-Paquet both set to be sidelined for several weeks.

Zoumana Camara is suspended for PSG but Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marco Verratti and Lucas should return after being on the bench for the cup game.