Paris Saint-Germain have put Ousmane Dembele on treatment for a muscle strain in his right calf after he was taken off after 28 minutes of Sunday’s 2-1 defeat by Paris FC, a late setback with the Champions League final against Arsenal now less than two weeks away.
PSG said on Monday that Dembele, 28, had been removed as a precaution and will remain under treatment for the next few days. Luis Enrique had initially framed the change as fatigue, but the club’s statement made clear the issue was physical rather than tactical, with Goncalo Ramos sent on in the first half.
The timing matters because PSG face Arsenal at the Puskas Arena in Budapest on 30 May, and Dembele has been one of their key attackers this season. He was named Ligue 1 Player of the Year for the second season in a row last week after scoring 10 goals in 22 league appearances and adding seven assists, while his Champions League return has been even more important, with seven goals in the competition, including strikes in both legs of the semi-final against Bayern Munich.
PSG go into the final as defending champions, but the margin for error is shrinking. Dembele has already had injury problems in the first half of the campaign, so any fresh issue now carries more weight than it would in midwinter. For a team preparing to meet Premier League leaders Arsenal, the question is not whether PSG can survive one player’s absence in May, but whether they will need him at full tilt to keep the trophy.
There is also the bigger calendar pressing in the background. Dembele has made France’s 26-man squad for the summer’s World Cup, which starts on 11 June, leaving little recovery time if the calf strain lingers. For now, PSG are treating the problem as a precaution. The weeks ahead will show whether that was enough to calm a concern that arrived at exactly the wrong moment.
