Paris Saint-Germain head into Saturday’s game at home to Lille with

the spectre of next week’s Champions League last-16 clash with Chelsea

looming large over the runaway Ligue 1 leaders.

PSG were frustrated in their attempts to rework a congested fixture

list as league officials rejected the club’s request to reschedule this

weekend’s encounter, leaving Laurent Blanc’s men just two full days to

prepare for Tuesday’s first leg.

Reaching the last four of Europe’s premier club competition is the

principal objective for PSG this season, but on Thursday Blanc received

the Qatari owners’ unequivocal backing after penning a contract

extension until 2018.

“I’m very happy, also for my staff. A coach is nothing without his

staff. For us, continuing the adventure is a show of faith but also a

big responsibility,” Blanc said of his renewal.

“The club has ambitions both nationally and in Europe, and we’ll do all we can to reach those objectives.”

PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi insisted he never had any doubts

that the former France coach was the right man to take the club

forward. 

“I always had confidence in Laurent Blanc, I never thought about

appointing another coach,” said Al-Khelaifi, adding he had “always

believed in (Blanc’s) ability to take the team to a higher level each

season”.

PSG are well on course to sew up a fourth successive league title,

with a huge 24-point lead over nearest rivals Monaco, but Saturday’s

match at the Parc des Princes is the seventh in an eight-game series in

little over three weeks.

“The calendar can’t get any tighter than that. If you talk to me

about the fixture list, I get heated, so it’s better to avoid it,” Blanc

said after Wednesday’s 3-0 victory over Lyon sent holders PSG through

to the quarter-finals of the French Cup.

“As of Sunday, we’ll start preparing for the game against Chelsea.

The game against Lille, with all respect to Lille, is badly timed.”

Second-place Monaco can widen the gap between themselves and the

chasing pack in the race for France’s other automatic Champions League

qualifying spot when they visit Saint-Etienne, who are six points adrift

in fourth, on Sunday.

Third-place Nice, above

Saint-Etienne on goal difference, host Marseille although Claude Puel’s

Champions League hopefuls will be without leading scorer Hatem Ben Arfa

after the France international was ruled out for around a month with a

hamstring injury.

Lyon have forced their way back into European contention with

successive 3-0 wins over Bordeaux and Angers, and Bruno Genesio’s side

will seek to bounce back from their cup exit at home to Caen.

“We’ve shown we have the quality to compete at the top of the table

from here until the end of the season,” Genesio said following the

defeat in Paris, with teenage striker Maxwell Cornet adding to that

sentiment.

“We’ve managed to pick ourselves up in the league. We have to

continue to work hard ahead of Sunday’s match,” said Cornet, who was

disappointed Lyon were unable to build on a promising start again PSG in

midweek.

Slumping Angers, losers of five of their past seven matches, will aim

to arrest their slide and reignite an unlikely European challenge away

to Rennes on Friday.

Nantes and Lorient, who both progressed to the last eight of the

French Cup on Wednesday, meet in a Brittany derby on Saturday, while

Montpellier host fellow strugglers Toulouse with both sides bidding to

avoid relegation.