Luis Enrique confirms PSG injury worry before Liverpool Champions League visit

Liverpool will take on PSG away in the Champions League next week, in between huge clashes with Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium and then Fulham at Anfield

PSG head coach Luis Enrique during a Champions League press conference(Image: Eddie Keogh - UEFA via Getty Images)

Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique has hinted that key man Bradley Barcola could miss out on facing Liverpool next week, with the French forward struggling with an injury.

Barcola has an ankle issue and didn't link up with the French national team during the March international break. Speaking ahead of PSG playing Toulouse on Friday, Enrique insisted there was "no rush" to get him back in time to be involved in the Champions League first leg at the Parc des Princes.

"Will he be fit for the second leg against Liverpool? I don’t know, I can’t give you that information," Enrique said. "You can’t ask Bradley Barcola that question.

"When I speak to him, I ask him how he’s feeling. But there’s no rush. The most important thing is that he recovers well. When will he be ready? I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see how he progresses."

A key member of the PSG squad, Barcola has started all 12 of its European matches since the start of the season. In those games, he has scored two goals and provided three assists.

While PSG is playing this weekend — on Friday night to give itself more time to prepare for the home leg against Liverpool — it will not have a game next Saturday or Sunday.

Ligue 1 postponed its huge title clash with Lens to allow PSG more time to prepare for the trip to Anfield a few days later, something that didn't go down well with the second-placed side in the French top flight.

PSG head coach Luis Enrique has spoken(Image: Robin Jones/Getty Images)

"On March 6, the scheduling of the match pitting Racing Club de Lens against Paris Saint-Germain was finalized, formalizing a framework to which everyone was then invited to adhere," it said.

"In a spirit of responsibility and restraint, Racing Club de Lens, from the very first requests, made it known to Paris Saint-Germain its intention not to see this date changed.

"True to a certain idea of sporting stability, the club had also chosen to refrain from any public communication on this subject. However, the recent proliferation of statements, interventions, and various suggestions now leads us to break from this reserve.

"It does indeed appear to us that a troubling sentiment is taking hold: that of a French championship gradually relegated to the status of an adjustment variable at the whim of the European imperatives of some.

"A singular conception of sporting equity, the equivalent of which is hard to find in other major continental competitions.

"Changing the date of this match today would mean, for Racing Club de Lens, being deprived of competition for 15 days and then chaining matches every three days — a rhythm that corresponds neither to the one defined at the start of the championship, nor to the resources of a club that could absorb this type of new constraint without consequence.

"It would therefore be understood that the tenth budget in the championship should adapt to the demands of the most powerful, in the name of interests that, evidently, now extend beyond the domestic framework, which has already been lightened in recent seasons (L1 reduced to 18 clubs, discontinuation of the Coupe de la Ligue).

"Beyond this particular case, the question raised is more fundamental: that of the respect due to the competition itself.

"For it is permissible to wonder when, on its own soil, the championship sometimes seems relegated behind other ambitions, however legitimate they may be.

"Racing Club de Lens remains committed to equity, the clarity of rules, and respect for all stakeholders. Simple principles, for a loyal and respected French football."