MONACO, France (Reuters) – AS Monaco punished a Paris St Germain side decimated by injuries to register a 3-1 victory in Ligue 1 on Saturday, led by captain Wissam Ben Yedder’s first-half double and assist.
Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Marco Verratti were missing for league leaders PSG but it was their defence that came under scrutiny as they struggled to cope with Monaco’s attack.
The result moved Monaco up to second place with 47 points, a point above Olympique de Marseille who visit mid-table Clermont later on Saturday. PSG suffered their third league defeat this season but remain top with 54 points from 23 games.
Aleksandr Golovin opened the scoring in the fourth minute when PSG failed to clear, with the midfielder side-footing home after Ben Yedder got past three defenders to set up the shot.
Monaco doubled the lead 14 minutes later after fine work by Krepin Diatta, who pressed inexperienced 17-year-old defender El El Chadaille Bitshiabu into an error that allowed Ben Yedder to fire the ball past goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
PSG halved the deficit after some neat interplay on the left flank between Carlos Soler and Juan Bernat, which opened up the Monaco defence before Bernat crossed to 16-year-old Warren Zaire-Emery at the far post for an easy tap-in.
But Ben Yedder restored Monaco’s two-goal advantage going into the break when he was released through the centre by Eliesse Ben Seghir, scoring his 14th Ligue 1 goal to move level with Reims’ Folarin Balogun at the top of the scoring charts.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
