Matvei Safonov

Gomes was sent on in his place and ends up scoring a really nicely taken, um, equalizer.

Amine Gouiri plays him in down the inside right channel and he cuts inside Juan Bernat, um, plonks a shot past Matvey Safonov.

And then two minutes later, PSG go ahead again.

Deep cross from Nuno Mendes.

And you thought, "Oh, okay, here we go.

PSG are up and running." Um, but you know, despite pressing with a bit more intensity, they, they gave Brest a lot of opportunities and Matvey Safonov, who's been in the crosshairs of late, ended up being PSG's savior.

I think he made six saves in total, uh, a couple of which were really impressive.

There was one, um, after about an hour.

Uh, but, but I wanna s- You, you speak about recent goalkeeping performances.

Uh, I know we're circling back a little bit here, but I just wanna mention that Safonov, we've been harsh on Safonov with all rights at times, but what a save from header from Doumbia in Brest that he did.

I think that-

Mm

But Akliouche, he's had a rough start, and he is, uh, starting.

I think this match it felt a bit like he was more comfortable and more in the team, um, than, than previously.

But before, before we, we stop here, I just wanna say there were seven goals in this match, but the nicest one, in my opinion, was from Kamara in Slovan Bratislava, who, uh, you know, beats Zabarny with some dribble and then hits it up in a tight angle past Safonov.

That was just, uh, it caught my eye, you know.

Cuts in from the left, gets around Elias Zubayrni, who, yeah, he won't want a statue of that, uh, [laughs] moment created.

Uh, makes an angle for the shot and then absolutely wallops the shot past, uh, the keeper Safonov into the top corner from a pretty tight angle.

Uh, that, that was the goal of the game-

Yeah

Monaco punished them, um, equalized through a young Portuguese left back called Flavien Azinho.

Uh, and then with about 20 minutes to go, uh, Monaco break again, uh, and Stanislav Dumbo takes the ball past Marquinhos, bludgeons a shot towards Matvey Safonov's near post and Safonov can't keep it out.

And this is becoming a bit of a theme when we were talking about him on last week's pod or the pod before.

You know, it's slightly peculiar that PSG have decided they are happy to go through an entire season with Safonov as their starting goalkeeper because, you know, he obviously is a little bit erratic.

Beraldo's there, Pacho's there.

Do they have the defensive chops where as Marquinhos starts to fade? And also- Ch- if they don't trust Chevalier, should they have upgraded on Safonov over the course of, of, of the summer?

Well, they wanted Suzuki, didn't they?

Yeah, exactly.

Did they, did they do enough in terms of a goalkeeping perspective to kind of move onwards and, and, and see where they are? Or is Safonov, and we...

This is very possible.

Do we just accept that Safonov is now PSG's number one, he's waited his turn in the wings long enough, and he was a goalkeeper good enough to win the Champions League last year?

I think we probably do.