Laurent Blanc says Premier League intensity is harming Manchester City's European hopes

The Paris Saint-Germain coach Laurent Blanc has claimed the intensity of the Premier League is damaging the Champions League ambitions of English clubs as the French champions prepare to face Manchester City in Wednesday's quarter-final first-leg.

Blanc was responding to claims by City’s French midfielder Samir Nasri – the pair had a bitter fall-out following the failure of Blanc’s France team at Euro 2012 – that PSG would struggle "on a Monday night at Stoke, West Ham or at the Emirates against Arsenal".

With PSG winning four successive Ligue 1 titles, and currently 25 points clear of second-placed Monaco, Blanc claims the French league has been unfairly dismissed as too weak to provide a potential Champions League winner. But the former Manchester United defender, who also insisted City were not one of the competition’s leading teams, claimed England football’s strength has become its weakness in the Champions League.

“Even the French media journalists are asking the same question, maybe the French league is not as strong, but I’m a bit bored of this,” Blanc said. “How can you explain why England has a competitive domestic league but here in the last eight there is only one team?

“Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see many English teams in the last four of the Champions League in the last five or six years so there are problems in every domestic league, trust me. Maybe they have reached a further level in terms of fatigue. The Premier League is so intense that by March or April maybe they have reached their levels of fatigue. We have to play in our league, we are happy to do so, we have to have a stronger league but you need to find a balance.”

With both City and PSG attempting to reach the semi-finals for the first time, Blanc admits it was a relief to avoid Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid by drawing City. “We were happy to avoid playing the two ogres of European football, Barcelona and Bayern Munich and you can add a third one into that, Real Madrid,” Blanc said. “I have the impression that people think it’s an easy draw. But I have seen so much of it that I gave them a speech yesterday saying, ‘Don’t listen to them, do not believe it, they know nothing about football.’

“City have a quality team with individual players who can make the difference. We’re preparing ourselves for two very difficult games.”

The City manager Manuel Pellegrini, who confirmed that goalkeeper Joe Hart will return from a calf injury with Yaya Toure ruled out with a knee problem, admitted he understood Blanc’s view that City were not one of Europe’s ‘ogres.’

“We must be clear,” Pellegrini said. “Barcelona at this moment is one of the best teams in the world. We also played Bayern and it was very difficult, but we won two and lost two. They are important teams who are used to this stage, so I can understand why Blanc does not want to face those teams, but I know they respect us very well. But we are not coming to Paris to try to draw 0-0. We will play the same as we always do.

"I think it is an important game for the club and the players because we couldn’t continue past Barcelona over the past two seasons. We have improved this season, but we know we face a very good PSG team.”

Pellegrni, meanwhile, insisted he was not risking Hart’s fitness by restoring him to the team just two-and-a-half weeks after the keeper suffered a calf strain in the 1-0 defeat against Manchester United. “Joe worked without any problem the last day,” Pellegrini said. “You always have problems with players after an injury, but Joe has had tests and he doesn’t have any problems to play.”