“I found us courageous in the second half”

Frustrated by the scenario of this shock against PSG since AS Monaco led by one goal an hour into the game, the Monegasque technician presented himself at a press conference.

They were eye-catching but not rewarded. Initially trailing, the AS Monaco players managed to take the lead on the hour mark, before giving in at the end of the match to finally lose 4-2. A frustrating scenario that Adi Hütter tried to explain at a press conference. Excerpts. ????️

Good evening coach. How do you explain this scenario?

Everyone saw that it was a very intense match and a good Ligue 1 match. Both teams tried to play forward and play good football. In the first half, PSG were better than us, but in the second, I found us very good and courageous. We managed to change the course of the match by taking a 2-1 lead.

Unfortunately, Dembélé’s equalizer came too quickly, and we should have defended better on the corner which led to the goal. I then took risks by bringing in an extra attacker for a defender, and we had situations to equalize. We are obviously not happy with this defeat but I can’t blame my players who tried to put in a good performance.

With this result, is the championship now folded?

I don’t know if Ligue 1 is over. We have to congratulate Paris for their victory but I am focusing on Monaco. We are now 10 pts behind them but we have our own objectives, which are to stay on the podium to qualify for the Champions League. Sunday, there is also the start of the Coupe de France, where we will present ourselves with ambitions. To answer your question, it depends on PSG.

Were you afraid that Wilfried Singo would be excluded after his action on Donnarumma?

I was away from the action to see what really happened. At half-time, I was able to see this selection again and I also want to apologize to Donnarumma. But it’s football, it can happen and the gesture was not intentional.

In this situation, he found himself facing him and wanted to play the ball, while trying to avoid it by jumping. It is of course a difficult situation for Donnarumma but it was also difficult for Wilfried to see her face. He obviously apologized but I’m not surprised the referee didn’t bring out a card.

Now, there remains this last Cup match to finish well and recover physically?

When I see our matches, especially in the second half, I cannot say that my players are tired. They gave everything on the pitch and I found us physically good. If we suffered this evening in the first half, we were better in the second where we showed courage.

We set up our football with good transitions, I think we deserved the draw. So we are unhappy today. It’s true that we have quite a few absentees at the moment but this allows us to see young people from the Academy on the sidelines, it’s the making of AS Monaco and we are proud of it.

How do you experience the scenarios that repeat themselves in big matches?

Maybe we are not that far from these big teams like Benfica, Arsenal or PSG tonight but we have to do better that’s for sure. My players showed us that we were on the right track but we did not manage to play the perfect match. Before the match, I said that we had to do that to beat PSG but when you concede four goals, it’s too much against this kind of team. Of course, so we have to progress and develop in the big games.