Cavani nets a double as PSG thrash Nantes 4-1

The win puts PSG on 35 points from 13 games
ahead of the defending champions Monaco on 29

Edinson Cavani fired two goals past Claudio Ranieri’s Nantes as Paris Saint-Germain went six points clear in Ligue 1 yesterday with an eye-catching 4-1 win.
With the Champions League visit of Celtic looming in midweek, PSG’s Kylian Mbappe was rested but his replacement Javier Pastore scored one and made one, while Angel Di Maria fired home the other goal from a corner he had taken himself.
The win puts PSG on 35 points from 13 games ahead of the defending champions Monaco on 29, with the sides to meet in a a table-top showdown on the south coast next weekend.
“We aren’t thinking about Monaco, just about winning,” Cavani said.
The star of the show yesterday may have been Pastore but Cavani’s brace lifted his goal tally to 15 league goals from 13 games, or 68 goals from 67 matches since Zlatan Ibrahimovic left for Manchester United.
“Very pleasing for a striker, but there’s a long way to go and I want to carry on and get bigger and better match after match,” Cavani said.
Cavani timed his run onto Pastore’s through ball perfectly before lashing a fierce shot low past ‘keeper Ciprian Tatarusanu on 38 minutes for the opener.
“I gave him the ball and he scored the goal, that’s the kind of player he is,” Pastore said.
Cavani’s other strike was a tap-in late on after defenders watched in horror as the loose ball fell to the wrong man.
In between Di Maria took a short corner which Marco Verratti returned to him before his searching left foot cross-shot crept in at the far corner to make it 2-0.
Ranieri, the mastermind of Leicester City’s Premier League title two seasons ago, brought on Pjejuce Nakoulma at 2-0 down and he pegged PSG back within three minutes to make it 2-1.
But Parstore, fed by Verratti, lobbed the giant Romanian ‘keeper, who got a hand to the ball only to see it drop over the line on 65 minutes.
“We were unlucky to lose 4-1, we played a good match. They are a huge team and you have to congratulate them,” Ranieri said. On Friday, French champions Monaco were held to a 1-1 draw at newly-promoted Amiens despite an equaliser from Stevan Jovetic to drop two points in the Ligue 1 title race.
Christophe Pelissier’s home side took a shock 31st-minute lead through Serge Gakpe, but Jovetic came off the bench in the second half to equalise.
Monaco went into the game four points adrift of PSG, but were boosted by the return from injury of captain Radamel Falcao.
The Colombian quickly went in search of his 14th league goal of the season, but twice fired wide before being denied by the legs of Amiens goalkeeper Regis Gurtner.
The Stade de la Licorne burst into life just after the half-hour mark as Togo international Gakpe surged through on goal and confidently slotted into the corner to score his first Amiens goal.