Real Madrid defeat ups the tension in PSG dressing room

Two late goals at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu left Paris Saint-Germain in a bad way with just three weeks to turn around an increasingly desperate state of affairs ahead of the March 6 return game.

A number of players have raised their grievances in private and in public after the 3-1 defeat on Wednesday night.

In addition, the French press have taken aim at the club's potentially futile spending with Unai Emery's criticism of referee Gianluca Rocchi drawing unwanted attention from UEFA.

Questions for the boss

From the first minute, some feel that coach Emery had set up Paris Saint-Germain with the wrong players but Edinson Cavani's substitution after 65 minutes raised even more eyebrows.

Having conceded six away to Barcelona last season and a further three in Madrid, the Spaniard's role at PSG is being called into question with Champions League elimination potentially terminal for his time in France.

Three unhappy senior players

While Cavani was left fuming by being substituted with the scoreline still 1-1, both Thiago Silva and Angel Di Maria let their anger known at being benched for the whole 90 minutes. Fully fit and a former Madrid man himself, Di Maria's frustrations were laid bare by his partner on social media.

"Your effort + your extra work + your goals + your assists + your best moment = BENCHED [sic]. And women are meant to know nothing about football," was the post-match Instagram assessment of Jorgelina Cardoso. Silva's wife was also left bemused, posting an image that simply read: 'tactics, tactics, tactics?'.

Rabiot targets the frontmen

As PSG's goalscorer and thus one of the men to emerge from the Bernabeu with some credit, Adrien Rabiot took aim at his side's expensive frontline and asked why they had such little impact on the game.

"It's all well and good putting eight goals past Dijon, but it's in matches like this that you have to stand up and be counted," the midfielder told reporters with their Ligue 1 opponents even mocking Les Parisiens, claiming they had 'done all the could' to set up PSG for a good showing in the last-16 first leg.

UEFA ponder their next move

"[The referee] made decisions that clearly hurt us," was how Emery assessed the officials' performance on Wednesday with UEFA irked by the coach's quotes, which were echoed by his chairman.

"The referee helped Madrid with his mistakes," stated Nasser Al-Khelaifi after an apparent handball by Sergio Ramos in the Real area was turned away, as was a potential trip by Ronaldo on Presnel Kimpembe in the build-up to the second goal.

French media lay into the squad and coach

There were plenty of areas of fault that the French press picked up on after the final whistle, L'Equipe highlighting how Emery's tactical changes 'reduced the team's strength' and that there was 'a lack of a relationship between the 500 million euro attackers'.

Newspaper Le Parisien also lamented how PSG continue to hit a 'glass ceiling' in the Champions League and how the competition remains 'a picture they are condemned to admire but not to paint'.