Match: Anderlecht v Paris Saint-Germain
Date: Wednesday, October 18
Time: 2:45 AM Thursday (SGT)/ 12:15 AM Thursday (IST)/ 7:45 PM Wednesday (BST)
Venue: Constant Vanden Stock Stadium, Anderlecht
Live Stream: Starhub Go app (Singapore)
TV Info: Eurosport (Singapore)/ Sony Ten (India)/ BT Sport (UK)
Overview
Paris Saint-Germain will be confident of taking another big step towards the Champions League knockout stage when they face Anderlecht on Wednesday.
The Parisian outfit are in Brussels to take on Anderlecht in the UEFA Champions League, and after an unflattering 2-1 win away at Dijon last Saturday, much better is expected at Constant Vanden Stock Stadium.
The French giants are top of Group B with two wins from two and eight goals scored in the process. Two wins from two has set them up for the double-header against the Belgian outfit with qualification at the earliest opportunity in sight.
Despite Anderlecht's disappointing start domestically and in Europe this campaign, PSG coach Unai Emery is wary of the 34-time Belgian champions' continental pedigree, saying every team in the Champions League deserves to be in it.
Anderlecht recorded a 4-3 win away to FC Malines on Friday in Week 10 of the Belgian league. With 18 points, Hein Vanhaezebrouck's men sit fifth in the Jupiler Pro League standings, nine points behind leaders Club Brugges.
Anderlecht away will also be a special match for one member of the squad -- right-back Thomas Meunier. Although the Belgium international is not guaranteed to start, he should at least feature after a heroic double away at Dijon last week. Meunier has scored seven goals and provided seven assists from 10 competitive appearances across all competitions for club and country this season.
PSG put five past Celtic and three past Bayern in the previous rounds, while Anderlecht were beaten 3-0 by Celtic last time out, effectively ending their fainter-than-faint hopes of progression and new manager Hein Vanhaezebrouck has backed his team to pull off a "footballing miracle".
Team News
At the end of training on Tuesday, Thiago Silva did not travel with the rest of the Paris squad to Belgium for Wednesday's UEFA Champions League Matchday 3 clash with Anderlecht. The captain was initially in the squad for the final training session before the team left Paris for Brussels but the Brazil international ultimately did not feel 100 percent fit.
To aid Emery's hopes for an improved showing after the lacklustre effort in Dijon, the Basque tactician has Edinson Cavani, Marco Verratti, Thiago Motta and Layvin Kurzawa available to him once again.
Head to Head
PSG and Anderlecht have met only twice before this in competitive football.
The last meeting between these two teams was in the Champions League, with the match in Paris ending in a 1-1 draw with goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Demy de Zeeuw.
Since both the teams found themselves in the same group in the 2013/14 season of the Uefa Champions League, the match in Brussels ended in a fabulous 5-0 victory for PSG, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic's four-goal haul taking the headlines; Edinson Cavani, Neymar and Kylian Mbappe will be amongst the star names competing for top billing on this occasion and Anderlecht could well find themselves on the end of another heavy defeat.
