'I lied' - Luis Enrique makes injury admission as PSG name squad for Liverpool trip

Luis Enrique has named an unchanged 22-man squad for PSG's Champions League round-of-16 second leg away at Liverpool

Luis Enrique has named an unchanged 22-man squad for Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League round-of-16 second leg at Liverpool on Tuesday night. The Reds boast a 1-0 aggregate lead after Harvey Elliott scored a late winner at the Parc des Princes last week.

However, Liverpool had Alisson Becker to thank for the victory as the goalkeeper made a record nine saves to frustrate PSG throughout despite a dominant display from the Ligue 1 giants.

Enrique made eight changes to his side for PSG’s 4-1 victory over Rennes on Saturday, with Bradley Barcola, Willian Pacho and Joao Neves the only players to retain starting berths from their loss to the Reds.

Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Achraf Hakimi, Vitinha and Nuno Mendes were only utilised as substitutes, with the most any of the quintet played being 25 minutes.

Fabian Ruiz and Gianluigi Donnarumma were left unused on the bench, while captain Marquinhos was left out of the squad altogether.

But all eight have been named in the PSG travelling squad for the trip to Anfield, confirming definitively that Enrique’s selection decisions against Rennes were not influenced by any injury or fitness issues with the Spaniard instead having one eye on his side’s second leg clash with Liverpool.

And the squad confirmed by PSG is the exact same as the 22-man rota they called upon for their first leg last week.

The PSG boss had already confirmed his players had avoided any new injuries after beating Rennes, while he also admitted that he had ‘lied’ before the Ligue 1 clash when claiming he had not been thinking about Arne Slot’s side.

“I lied to you. Of course, I think about Liverpool, like everyone else,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about the games against Liverpool for a while, since the draw already.

“But I also think that I have to highlight my team, my players, the mentality of all the players in the team, all of them.

“Those who play, those who play less, those who don’t participate. I think that to be able to compete, to fight for all the titles and to represent a club like ours, they have the right mentality. And it’s a pleasure for me to coach them.”

He continued: "I think all the players are fine. There are no injuries. The result is excellent against a team that gave us a hard time but we achieved our objective.

“The first leg leaves us no options: we have to win, that's the objective. Nothing will change compared to the other matches, we play to win, but that's the objective.”