What Hakimi's absence actually costs PSG

Achraf Hakimi will not play on Sunday. A thigh problem, announced early in the week. For the champions' first-choice right-back and a Morocco international, the headline writes itself: a blow for Paris before the Classique.

We priced the blow. It is worth two and a half points.

Fifth on the list

A number on its own says nothing. So we replayed the match eleven times, each time removing one Paris starter and replacing him with his most likely deputy in the same position. Same opponent, same ground, same parameters: only the player changes.

Hakimi's absence comes fifth. Losing Dembélé would cost sixty per cent more, and three other Paris players weigh more than the Morocco international right-back. Paris have lost a very good player, not their own.

The line that surprises is Nuno Mendes's, in second. It does not say he is worth more than Marquinhos: it says the gap to his deputy is wider. A starter never weighs on his own — he weighs the distance between himself and whoever would take his place.

Nobody is improvising

That is what stops the figure climbing higher: the replacement is nothing like an emergency.

Warren Zaïre-Emery takes the right flank. He is not a midfielder shifted across in a panic — he has started seventeen times in that position across his last forty-three starts, against eighteen in his natural role in midfield. Luis Enrique has used him there for a year. The Paris staff are not improvising: they are applying a rotation they have already worn in.

The announced line-ups

Marseille4-2-3-1

1

22

4

21

33

8

23

77

7

14

9

Paris4-3-3Achraf Hakimi out

7

9

10

8

17

87

25

51

5

33

39

Line-ups as announced before kick-off. The highlighted player is the one filling the vacant position.

Even so, a specialist right-back and a midfielder filling in do not defend a touchline the same way. That is where the two and a half points sit.

Two readings that do not say the same thing

We put the same question to two models, and they disagree. We are publishing both rather than the one that suits us.

The first is the one we show here every week. It knows the two teams and their history, nothing else — not the injuries, not the line-ups. It gives Paris 53.2%.

The second reads all twenty-two announced players, their actual position and their output over the past twelve months, adjusted for the quality of their team-mates and opponents. It gives Paris 66.9%.

Thirteen points apart, and it comes down to one thing: the team model judges Marseille on their season, the player model judges the eleven Marseille put out on Sunday. The second sees a Marseille squad well below the Paris one once the two teamsheets are set side by side.

Which to believe? On our out-of-sample tests the player model predicts better — five per cent of likelihood gained on the team model. But a thirteen-point gap on a single match is a gap we cannot arbitrate, and saying so is more useful than choosing in silence.

What they do not contradict is Hakimi's absence: it reads as a difference inside the second model, everything else held equal.

What is actually at stake on Sunday

In the table, Olympique Marseille are thirteenth on three points. Paris Saint Germain, the reigning champions, are eighth on five. A year ago, almost to the day, Marseille won 1-0 at the Vélodrome; in February, Paris answered with a 5-0.

Two and a half points do not decide a Classique. What these numbers say lies elsewhere: Paris remain clear favourites at the Vélodrome despite eighth place and a missing starter, because four of their players would cost more than the one who is missing.

Which is what makes the evening interesting. Marseille do not need Paris weakened to win. They need Paris to be what they have been for four matchdays.