This clearly brings trouble. Marco is irreplaceable but it's true players like Pastore can bring a lot of advantages.
Hopefully our team will look like something like this

Cavani Ibra Pastore
Matuidi Motta Di Maria
Maxwell DL TS Marquinhos
Trapp

this covers the absence of Verratti a little but Motta plays his best only when Verratti is around, so we might aswell have some problems in a defensive pov tonight

Isn't Matuidi good enough to hold his own?

He doesn't have the passing of Verratti.

I know but the defensive capabilities he definitely has more than Veratti

Yeah, but Verratti is their heart in the midfield, he's the one that turns defense into attack.

He is, but lately he has been underperforming compared to what he showed last year or 2 years ago. As long as he doesn't exchange zones too much with Cavani we should do OK in the midfield.
With Verratti I would be very confident about us winning the midfield, now I'm neither pessimistic nor optimistic.
We'll need Motta and Matuidi each at 100% though to qualify for sure. Also Pastore has improved in the defensive area but he isn't the fittest player right now.

Anyway ALLEZ PARIS !

so Rabiot is in the starting XI...






...






Pastore is on the bench...

Awkward

Like I read on some forum, Pastore must have fucked Blanc's wife, it just can't be otherwise