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Paris
Edinson Cavani fired two goals past Claudio Ranieri's Nantes as Paris Saint-Germain went six points clear in Ligue 1 on Saturday with an eye-catching 4-1 win.
With the Champions League visit of Celtic looming in midweek, PSG's Kylian Mbappe was rested but his replacement Javier Pastore scored one and made one, while Angel Di Maria fired home the other goal from a corner he had taken himself.
The win puts PSG on 35 points from 13 games ahead of the defending champions Monaco on 29, with the sides to meet in a a table-top showdown on the south coast next weekend.
"We aren't thinking about Monaco, just about winning," Cavani said.
The star of the show Saturday may have been Pastore but Cavani's brace lifted his goal tally to 15 league goals from 13 games, or 68 goals from 67 matches since Zlatan Ibrahimovic left for Manchester United.
"Very pleasing for a striker, but there's a long way to go and I want to carry on and get bigger and better match after match," Cavani said.
Cavani timed his run onto Pastore's through ball perfectly before lashing a fierce shot low past 'keeper Ciprian Tatarusanu on 38 minutes for the opener.
"I gave him the ball and he scored the goal, that's the kind of player he is," Pastore said.
Cavani's other strike was a tap-in late on after defenders watched in horror as the loose ball fell to the wrong man.
In between Di Maris took a short corner which Marco Verratti returned to him before his searching left foot cross-shot crept in at the far corner to make it 2-0.
Ranieri, the mastermind of Leicester City's Premier League title two seasons ago, brought on Pjejuce Nakoulma at 2-0 down and he pegged PSG back within three minutes to make it 2-1.
But Parstore, fed by Verratti, lobbed the giant Romanian 'keeper, who got a hand to the ball only to see it drop over the line on 65 minutes.
"We were unlucky to lose 4-1, we played a good match. They are a huge team and you have to congratulate them," Ranieri said.
French champions Monaco were held to a 1-1 draw at newly-promoted Amiens on Friday despite an equaliser from Stevan Jovetic to drop two points in the Ligue 1 title race.
Christophe Pelissier's home side took a shock 31st-minute lead through Serge Gakpe, but Jovetic came off the bench in the second half to equalise.
Ligue 1 leaders Paris Saint-Germain can move six points clear of Monaco when they welcome Nantes to the Parc des Princes on Saturday, after Leonardo Jardim's men saw a three-match winning streak come to an end.
"We didn't meet out objectives, especially in the first half -- our ball control was poor, we misplayed a lot of passes and our teamwork wasn't good enough," Jardim said.
"But if the first half was negative, the second was better."
Earlier on Friday, Lille beat Saint-Etienne 3-1 to ease the pressure on under-fire Argentinian coach Marcelo Bielsa and move out of the Ligue 1 relegation zone.
Nicolas Pepe gave Lille the lead, and although Jonathan Bamba levelled from the penalty spot, Brazilian Thiago Mendes curled in and Ezequiel Ponce rounded off the scoring late on.
