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Paris Saint-Germain host Newcastle United on Tuesday in a UEFA Champions League Group F game loaded with different permutations for Luis Enrique's side and you can catch all the action on Paramount+. Les Parisiens could secure their place in the round of 16 with a game to spare with victory over the Magpies combined with Borussia Dortmund beating Milan. However, PSG could also slip to bottom of the table ahead of the last round of fixtures if Newcastle complete an unexpected double over the Ligue 1 giants at Parc des Princes this midweek.

Top spot is within reach for the French capital outfit with a final game away to BVB in Germany, but losses on the road to both the Premier League side and the Rossoneri make it far from a certainty. There is little margin for error then as PSG prepare to host Newcastle with revenge on their minds for a chastening 4-1 defeat in the second round of Group F fixtures. Regardless of whether or not Luis Enrique's side both of their remaining games, this will not go down as the most convincing of group stage showings from the Championnat leaders.

"We know that we can go through on Tuesday, but we are just focusing on our own game," said midfielder Vitinha in Monday's press conference. "To get through, we will need to win anyway, so we will just focus on what the coach expects from us. We want to win this game to get ourselves into a good position in the group, but we need to be focused, to give 100% and to follow the coach's plans. If we do that, the result will come."

Losing narrowly to Milan away last time out was no more encouraging than being totally played off the park by Eddie Howe's hungry side in round two, and those results in both England and Italy will make PSG's group display unconvincing to many moving forward. A win here and then a loss in Dortmund or vice versa would be three wins and three defeats which might just about be enough to scrape through. Little surprise then that Luis Enrique views Tuesday's meeting with Newcastle as a key game for his players and the club's supporters in their continental quest.

"The Parc des Princes will carry us," declared the Spanish tactician on Monday. "I am expecting a great atmosphere -- we really need them. We need a crowd that is more up for it and more excited than they normally are, and we will be treating this game like a final. At this level, home games are key. Our fans are a special asset for us, and we are expecting an incredible amount of support. The stronger the connection between the players and the fans, the easier things will be -- especially in the tougher moments."

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Should PSG secure three points or more over these final two games and book a knockout round berth, the round of 16 draw could be very interesting indeed. The French champions often qualify from their group in reasonably comfortable fashion before coming up against what appears to be a favorable draw at the time. Come February and the resumption of Champions League action, though, that optimism almost always makes way for pessimism and PSG's draw looks harder than it did a few months before.

Bayern Munich, Real Madrid (twice) and Manchester United have not appeared to be the most daunting of round of 16 opponents over the past five years, with each scuffling at the time PSG found out they'd be facing them, yet have resulted in painful exits before the quarterfinals. If 2020-21 was a relatively glorious spell with back-to-back final and semifinal runs, the second premature elimination at the hands of Real and last year's limp exit against Bayern were particularly underwhelming. Both sides, like United back in 2019, appeared to be there for the taking only for PSG to invent new ways to be eliminated despite winning first legs in two of those editions.

For once, the Ligue 1 juggernaut might be the team that emerges in fairly unconvincing fashion from the group stages only to be a far more daunting prospect come February and the knockout phase. A berth in the next round must be secured first before looking at how the other groups are shaping up. The signs do suggest, though, that progress is being made slowly by Luis Enrique in Paris and that this PSG side could resemble a different beast by the time knockout continental soccer is back on the menu in early 2024.