Unai Emery receives a vote of confidence from PSG's chairman after humiliating Barcelona defeat

Nasser Al-Khelaifi has backed his head coach after the club's 6-1 defeat by Barcelona — despite sacking his previous manager Laurent Blanc for his repeated failure in the Champions League

Emery has been widelycriticised for PSG's capitulation (Getty)

PSG head coach Unai Emery has received a vote of confidence from the club’s president after their humiliating Champions League exit at the hands of Barcelona.

The French champions looked set to reach the quarter-finals of the competition for a fourth successive season after they thrashed Barcelona 4-0 at the Parc des Princes.

But they fell apart at the Nou Camp in the return leg, losing 6-1 to the Spanish club in one of the greatest comebacks in recent memory.

It was speculated in the French media that Emery, who joined the club from Sevilla in the summer, could be sacked after the disastrous second-leg performance. However PSG’s president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has moved to squash those rumours by backing his embattled manager.

"After such a failure, everyone has to take their responsibility," Al-Khelaifi told Le Parisien.

"That includes me as the president, the sporting directors, the coach and also the players.

"Ever since he arrived, Emery has worked incredibly hard every day to help this team forward. We have to learn from this defeat and not let emotion dictate our actions.”

Emery replaced Laurent Blanc at the start of the season with the Frenchman sacked after three seasons at the club because of his repeated failure to reach the last four of the Champions League.

"I have supported [Blanc] for three years but now we must think about what we will do next season to build a stronger team in Europe,” Al-Khelaifi was quoted as saying at the time.

Despite this, Al-Khelaifi believes PSG have made progress under Emery, who he claims enjoys his full support”.

"I have had some long talks with the coach in the past few days,” he added. “Unai has a lot of quality and we believe in him. He has my full support and that of everybody else.

“We will discuss what changes we need during the pre-season. Everybody said he was the best coach in the world after the first leg. He has not all of a sudden become the worst coach now.

"Let's be serious, we have important goals ahead of us. We all have to turn our focus toward our remaining goals now."


 The French champions collapsed at the Nou Camp 
 (Getty)

PSG have won Ligue 1 for the past four seasons, but currently sit third in the table, three points behind league leaders Monaco and a point behind the unfancied OGC Nice.

They are still in with a chance of defending their domestic titles, having reached the final of the Coupe de la Ligue, against Monaco, and the quarter-finals of the Coupe de France.