El Matador Cavani sends PSG to the top

PARIS: A goal apiece from Edinson Cavani and Angel Di Maria gave Paris St Germain a 2-0 win over Montpellier to send the champions top of Ligue 1 for the first time this season.

PSG now have 80 points from 34 games to top Ligue 1 provisionally while second placed Monaco, the Champions League semi-finalists, have 77 points from 32.

In homage to the Parisian policeman murdered on the Champs Elysees in a terror attack on Thursday, two policemen symbolically took the kick off, while the players all wore black armbands in mourning.

Given the reverse fixture was a resounding 3-0 win for Montpellier the star-studded Parisian outfit needed to be on their guard and occasionally rode their luck.

But Unai Emery’s charges have now steamrollered to eight straight wins since their humiliating Champions League meltdown in Barcelona.

“We’re in a good place, Monaco too, they’re really good,” said Emery after the game.

“We must win our last (four) matches and see if they slip up,” he added.

Visiting coach Jean-Louis Gasset is a former PSG assistant coach from the Laurent Blanc era and had enjoyed his first return to some extent.

“We had them on the back foot for a while,” he said.

“I’m fully behind them for the title but it won’t be easy with Monaco needing to slip up twice,” he said in reference not only to the three extra points Monaco can take but also their vastly superior goal difference.

Cavani, known as El Matador for his killer instinct in front of goal, converted Blaise Matuidi’s neat cross after leaving his marker with the drop of a shoulder and dummying the goalkeeper from around the penalty spot for his 31st league goal of the campaign.

That was just before the half hour and Cavani was again involved in setting up Di Maria’s decider on 48 minutes. The Uruguayan dispossessed a defender and back heeled the ball to the Argentine giving him a distant sight on goal before he duly curled his shot into the top corner for a sumptuous strike.

Minutes later Cavani almost scored an unwitting own goal when PSG goalkeeper Kevin Trapp kicked the ball into his back and the rebounding ball was scooped off the PSG goal-line by the cool headed Serge Aurier.

Both sides could have scored more in an open game that featured astonishingly few fouls.