PSG’s Ousmane Dembélé says he ‘doesn’t regret’ sounding alarm with individualistic jibe

After a 3-1 defeat to Stade Rennais in February, Ousmane Dembélé (29) sounded the alarm.  “Above all, we have to play for Paris Saint-Germain to win matches because, if we play alone on the pitch, that won’t work. Last year, we put the club above everything else, before thinking about ourselves. We need to rediscover that. We have to play for the club first and foremost before thinking about ourselves,” said the Ballon d’Or winner.

The comments called out individualism that Dembélé believed was creeping into some players’ games at PSG. Luis Enrique responded strongly, stating that all post-match comments were “worthless”, whilst Joao Neves said the following: “When we have something to say to certain players, we say it to their face.”

With Dembélé not citing players in his criticism, there were widespread reports of the targets. It was thought that Désiré Doué was perhaps one of the players that the former Barcelona winger targeted with his comments.

‘Resilience’ characterises PSG – Dembélé

However, Dembélé does not regret making them. “I don’t regret them at all. That is the only way that PSG can win. It was a small sentence for the whole team. I think that reaped its reward,” he said in Monday’s press conference attended by Get French Football News. 

Asked if PSG were now less individualistic, he responded, “It isn’t a problem of individualism, but there were some matches where we could have made the pass, but there was no argument. We spoke together, and everything went well […] the manager talks about the word resilience. It is what characterises our team.”