PSG: Willian Pacho and João Neves are our players of the month for October

This summer, PSG recruited little but recruited well. In the space of just over two months, Ecuadorian defender Willian Pacho and Portuguese midfielder João Neves have become essential in Luis Enrique’s squad. As the month of November approaches, the former is the player most used by the Spaniard (1,017 minutes of play), followed closely by the Portuguese, third (903 minutes).

In a month which had not necessarily started well for the Parisians, with a dry defeat at Arsenal, the two men stood out in particular for their consistency and convincing performances during the last three matches. They are, tied, the players of the month according to the marks awarded by the reporters of Le Parisien. This is already the second time that Neves has topped our ranking, having already dominated the September ranking.

The two men are, with Warren Zaire-Emery, Bradley Barcola and Gianluigi Donnarumma, the only ones to have been rated in each of the five matches in October. Unlike these three others, however, they experienced slightly less marked slumps during more complicated matches for the Reds and Blues, with scores never falling below 4.

Against PSV Eindhoven, Willian Pacho, for example, was one of the rare satisfactions in a dull match on the Parisian side (his rating: 6). A solid and reliable defender, he confirmed with a very good match at the Vélodrome on October 27, for his first clasico against Olympique de Marseille (7). Match during which Neves, scorer of his first goal in Parisian colors, received the best rating on the PSG side (7.5).

Beyond their playing time, one statistic pretty much sums up the importance that Pacho and Neves have taken in Luis Enrique’s organization: they are the two players who touch the ball the most since the start of the season. The first charges an average of 103.7 touches of the ball per 90 minutes played, 93 for the second. In October, Pacho averaged 97.2 touches per game, with 94.5% successful passes. For Neves, it was an average of 87 touches of the ball per match, for 90.6% successful passes.

Also note in October the generally very satisfactory performances of Marquinhos, third in our ranking mainly because he did not receive a rating against Strasbourg, which very slightly lowered his overall rating. The Brazilian defender, the oldest member of the squad at the age of 30, notably received the best Parisian scores against Nice (6) and PSV (6), in addition to a very good score against OM ( 7).