Kylian Mbappe bagged his second brace this week as Paris Saint-Germain thrashed Lorient 5-1 in Ligue 1 action on Sunday night.
Result: Paris Saint-Germain 5-1 Lorient
Date: 03 April 2022
Venue: Parc di Princes
Messi returned to the PSG line-up in place of Georginio Wijnaldum while Sergio Ramos was named on the bench after returning from injury.
After a disappointing 3-0 loss to AS Monaco before the FIFA break, PSG got off to the perfect start when Neymar opened the scoring on 12 minutes after being set up by Kylian Mbappe.
The lead was doubled in the 28th minute when Mbappe collected a pass from Idrissa Gueye in the box before slotting past Matthieu Dreyer from close range.
The only smudge on an impressive first half occurred before the break, as Mauricio Pochettino was forced to make a change when Leandro Paredes was replaced by Wijnaldum due to injury.
The hosts almost managed to squeeze in a third goal on the stroke of halftime, but Dreyer produced a good save to keep out Neymar's stinging effort.
Lorient managed to reduce the deficit 10 minutes after the restart, with Terem Moffi taking advantage of Achraf Hakimi's lazy pass before slotting past Gianluigi Donnarumma.
However, PSG restored their two-goal advantage after the hour mark as Mbappe completed his brace by turning home a cross from Hakimi, who made up for his earlier error.
Mbappe then turned provider with 17 minutes left on the clock to set up Messi, who took one touch before rifling the ball home for his third league goal of the campaign.
Neymar rounded off the scoring for the Ligue 1 leaders on 90 minutes with his second goal of the night, Pochettino's men now lead the standings by 12 points.
