Paris Saint-Germain climbed to third on the Ligue 1 table with a 3-1 victory over Rennes on Sunday night.
PSG manager Luis Enrique named four changes where Lucas Hernandez, Manuel Ugarte, Warren Emery-Zaire and Goncalo Ramos were recalled after the big loss to Newcastle United in the UEFA Champions League.
The host were keen to hit the ground running in the earlier stages with an opening by Arnaud Kalimuendo, but PSG goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made a stop.
Although, the title holders went ahead just past the half-hour mark when Vitinha got a pocket of space on the far side and curled a delightful effort past the reach of goalkeeper Steven Mandanda.
It was two in the space of minutes as a pin-point delivery by Zaire-Emery found the galloping run of Achraf Hakimi, who retrieved to apply a solid near post finish.
Rennes attempted to get a lifeline before the conclusion of the first half, but were unable to get a breakthrough and entered the interval trailing the reigning champions.
In the second half, the visitors continued to have the lion share of chances and had brought on Randal Kolo Muani in the place of Ramos.
Rennes got a lifeline ten minutes later as Amine Gouiri beat Hernandez to Ludovic Blas' floated delivery and headed past Donnarumma.
The big-spending visitors though restored their two-goal cushion minutes later as substitute Muani got on the end of Hakimi’s cross out wide and applied a first-time finish.
With the tempo very low inside the closing period, Rennes came close to a second when Benjamin Bourigeaud’s free-kick met the head of Bertug Ozgur Yildirim who rattled the crossbar.
Star man Kylian Mbappe, who was relatively quiet at this point, came alive late on when he combined with Barcola to stung the gloves of Mandanda, but three goals were enough to get the job done on the night.
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