Christophe Dugarry says Villa ‘don’t belong’ in the Champions League as he criticised their performance against Paris Saint-Germain
Birmingham City icon Christophe Dugarry
Birmingham City legend Christophe Dugarry has launched an astonishing attack on Aston Villa in the wake of their Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.
Villa lost 3-1 to PSG in the first leg of their quarter-final tie in Paris on Wednesday night.
Unai Emery’s side took the lead through Morgan Rogers, but the French champions hit back with goals from Desire Doue, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Nuno Mendes to put themselves in the driving seat to reach the semi-finals ahead of the second leg at Villa Park on Tuesday night (8pm).
Dugarry has been heavily critical of Villa, singling out Marco Asensio, who is on loan at Villa from PSG, and Marcus Rashford and even saying the Villans “don’t belong” in the Champions League.
“If PSG didn’t go all the way, it would be a huge disappointment,” he said to RMC Sport.
“The players, the management, the fans, everyone believes in it, and rightly so.
“Paris put in another great performance, even if I have one caveat: I found this Aston Villa team quite catastrophic.
“This can also be explained by PSG’s pressing and technical quality. But I understand better why Aston Villa is seventh in the Premier League.”
“This team was extremely disappointing,” he added.
“Asensio wasn’t playing in Paris, Rashford wasn’t playing for Manchester United… Teams like Aston Villa and Borussia Dortmund don’t belong at this level.
“There’s such a big gap between Paris and Aston Villa. Bravo to PSG, who were far superior in every area.
“Aston Villa don’t have players strong enough to bring the balls out, and they didn’t know how to fight for the second balls. This team didn’t show much.”
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