‘Just the beginning’ for Neymar as PSG hit key run

PArIs: Neymar insists his Paris St Germain career is just getting started as the runaway French League leaders prepare for a crucial stretch of matches that will likely define their season.

PSG go to struggling Lille today, exactly six months on from Neymar’s world-record transfer from Barcelona, with the Brazilian superstar bidding to add to his overall haul of 26 goals from 24 matches.

“I wasn’t expecting this at the beginning, these statistics with Paris St Germain. But I’m here to help the team and my teammates and to try and do better each day, in each match, and that’s the most important thing,” Neymar told PSG TV.

“It’s not my objective to be the team’s main player, the lad who gets the most assists or scores the most goals. I just want to play my own football, that’s how it is, I want to make things happen.”

Neymar followed up a four-goal performance in an 8-0 win over Dijon with a brace in last weekend’s 4-0 rout of Montpellier, and despite constant speculation about his future, he is adamant there is much more to come in Paris.

“It’s just the beginning,” said the 25-year-old, who scored the club’s 2,000th goal at the Parc des Princes against Montpellier.

“Making history with this club is an important thing for a player. That’s why I came here. To make history and help PSG progress.”

After today’s trip north, PSG visit second-tier Sochaux in the French Cup and then host Toulouse in Ligue 1 before all eyes turn to the first leg of their Champions League last-16 clash with holders Real Madrid in Spain on Feb 14.

Lille, the French champions in 2011, are just one place above the bottom three after a tumultuous first half of the campaign that resulted in an acrimonious divorce between the club and mercurial Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa.

While PSG continue their inexorable march towards a fifth title in six years, the battle for second place intensifies this weekend as Lyon host defending champions Monaco tomorrow.

It will be the second meeting in 10 days after Lyon dumped Monaco out in the last of 32 of the French Cup following a 3-2 victory at the Stade Louis II.

But after six wins in seven league outings, Lyon slumped to a 3-1 defeat last time out on what was Gustavo Poyet’s debut as Bordeaux coach having replaced the sacked Jocelyn Gourvennec.

Monaco sealed a return to the French League Cup final on Wednesday as Radamel Falcao struck twice in a 2-0 defeat of Montpellier to set up a rematch against last year’s winners PSG. — AFP