Football · National
Dembélé’s double keeps Paris seven points clear at the season’s midpoint
Paris beat Saint-Étienne 2–1 on 12 January. Dembélé scored twice before halftime, and Davitashvili’s free kick reduced the margin after the break.
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Two first-half goals secure the points
Paris Saint-Germain defeated Saint-Étienne 2–1 at the Parc des Princes on 12 January, preserving a seven-point lead at the top of Ligue 1. Ousmane Dembélé scored both Paris goals before halftime. The league’s recap describes his first as a low finish after moving in from the right wing, and his second as a penalty following a handball by Léo Pétrot. The result was Luis Enrique’s fiftieth victory as Paris manager. It also confirmed an unbeaten opening half of the league season: thirteen wins and four draws from seventeen games. Saint-Étienne reduced the margin after the break, but could not find an equaliser before the hosts collected the three points.
Saint-Étienne keeps the game within reach
Saint-Étienne’s report records a demanding evening for goalkeeper Gautier Larsonneur, whose saves prevented Paris from increasing its lead. A Barcola goal before halftime was ruled out after video review identified a foul on Benjamin Bouchouari. The visitors introduced Augustine Boakye for Mathieu Cafaro at the interval, then found a route back through Zuriko Davitashvili. His direct free kick in the sixty-fourth minute was his sixth league goal of the season and made the score 2–1. Saint-Étienne’s account places the performance in the opening phase of Eirik Horneland’s tenure, following the previous weekend’s 3–1 win over Reims. The visitors still left without a point, but had reduced a two-goal halftime deficit to one.
Dembélé joins a close scoring race
The league’s analysis published 13 January places Dembélé’s double within a closely contested scoring race. He and Paris teammate Bradley Barcola each had ten league goals, one behind Lille’s Jonathan David and Marseille’s Mason Greenwood. Dembélé’s recent output had accelerated sharply: five goals in his last three league appearances matched the five he had scored in his first thirteen. Those recent games included successive league doubles against Monaco and Saint-Étienne. Barcola’s ten goals had arrived in his first eleven league matches, with his latest scoring appearance against Toulouse on 9 November. The Saint-Étienne result therefore strengthened Paris’s team position while bringing a second Paris attacker within one goal of the individual scoring leaders.
January moves immediately to cup and European games
The official fixture archive shows how this league result fitted into a busy month. Paris’s next appointment was the Coupe de France round of 32 against Espaly on 15 January at the Stade Marcel-Michelin in Clermont-Ferrand. The club then had a league visit to Lens on 18 January, followed by Manchester City at home in the Champions League on 22 January. Reims was scheduled to visit the Parc on 25 January, before the league-phase finale away to Stuttgart on 29 January. Those fixtures explain why the Saint-Étienne game marked only the beginning of the main January programme after the Monaco trophy match. Saint-Étienne’s report, meanwhile, identified Nantes at home the following Sunday as its next chance to collect league points.
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