Paris Saint-Germain bounced back from their lackluster performance against Barcelona by thrashing LOSC Lille Metropole 6-1 to move three points ahead of Olympique Lyonnais at the top of the French league on Saturday.
Lyon still had a marginally better goal difference and could move back to the top if they won away at Stade de Reims yesterday.
Winger Ezequiel Lavezzi grabbed a hat-trick and striker Edinson Cavani scored twice in what midfielder Blaise Matuidi called PSG’s “best performance of the season.”
“It’s important to get six goals because Lyon scores a lot,” Matuidi said.
League Cup winners PSG remain on course for an unprecedented domestic treble, and will be looking to plunder more goals tomorrow when they play their game in hand at home to 19th-place Metz.
“Winning the treble is a big motivation for us, it would be historic, and that’s why we’re playing for PSG,” Matuidi said. “We’ll keep going like this, without getting carried away. We’re playing Metz, which is fighting to stay up, so it won’t be easy.”
PSG were comprehensively beaten 5-1 on aggregate by Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals, but against a very poor Lille side, they scored twice inside the first four minutes.
“We regret how we played against Barcelona, but that’s in the past now and we have to win the two trophies remaining,” Matuidi said.
PSG are set to be heavy favorites when they face second-division Auxerre in the French Cup final next month.
Leftback Maxell scored after 24 seconds when he turned in Serge Aurier’s cross from the right with a neat first-time shot for the quickest goal in PSG’s league history — two seconds faster than Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s goal two seasons ago. Olympique de Marseille striker Andre-Pierre Gignac’s goal after 20 seconds against Evian Thonon Gaillard is the quickest this season.
Attacking midfielder Javier Pastore then played Cavani through with a superb pass and the forward’s brilliant lob from the edge of the penalty area sailed over goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.
Cavani missed good chances in the first leg of PSG’s 3-1 defeat against Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-final and was totally anonymous in the second leg on Tuesday last week, but he ran Lille’s defense ragged.
Midfielder Thiago Motta picked out Cavani galloping down the right in the 29th and he squared the ball to Lavezzi for the third goal.
Lavezzi grabbed his second in the 44th with Cavani and Matuidi combining to set him up for a close-range volley.
PSG goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu limped off injured shortly after, replaced by Nicolas Douchez, and right back Serge Aurier — only recently back from injury — also went off with a thigh injury just before the interval.
“[Sirigu] has a peculiar injury. From what I’ve heard, his boot was bothering him and it’s a heel problem,” PSG coach Laurent Blanc said.
Defender Marko Basa pulled a goal back when he headed in from a corner in the 59th, but the visitors finished the match with 10 players after rightback Sebastian Corchia was sent off for fouling Lavezzi in the 71st.
Cavani converted the penalty and Lavezzi completed his hat-trick in the 77th, drilling a low shot past Enyeama after running onto another pass from the irrepressible Pastore.
Even the normally indifferent Ibrahimovic applauded from the stands.
In other matches, it was Girondins de Bordeaux 1, Metz 1; Stade Malherbe Caen Calvados 0, En Avant de Guingamp 2; Evian 1, SC Bastia 2; Stade Rennais 2, OGC Nice 1; and Toulouse 1, Nantes 1.
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