Fabian Ruiz struggled once more against Angers

PSG hosted and defeated Angers 2-0 on Wednesday, Jan. 11for the return of Ligue 1 to the Parc des Princes in 2023. While Lionel Messi's return brought smiles to the Parisian contingent, it didn't help a struggling Fabian Ruiz who, once more and for the nth time this season, put on another mediocre game.

Fabian Ruiz, the Spanish midfielder featuring for PSG more often than not this year, had another disappointing performance against last-place Angers (2-0) on Wednesday. He continued a worrying trend of increasingly underwhelming performances that are coming at a staggeringly steady pace.

Ruiz joined Paris Saint-Germain from Napoli last summer for €23M. Still a young 26-year-old midfielder, Ruiz has failed to captivate the Rouge et Bleu faithful since his arrival in the French capital.

Lined up alongside Vitinha in the middle of the pitch in a game that marked a surprising return of the 5-2-3 formation to PSG's board, the Spanish international barely showed up for his club.

Fabian Ruiz keeps racking up starts, minutes... and rather shocking underperformances at PSG after arriving last summer

The Spaniard was lost on the pitch and nearly never got into the action of the game. He barely influenced the capital club's play against Angers.

Ruiz also lost balls through his minutes on the pitch while misjudging and misfiring passes to his teammates. The former Napoli midfielder was mostly happy to play safe passes out from deeper positions (97% of successful passes), though that mean he wasn't taking any risks at all, thus not really creating any sort of danger when in possession of the ball.

He was never seen offering solutions to his teammates through offensive runs (even though positioned higher up the pitch than teammate Vitinha), let alone through deep-cutting balls. Beyond a pass for Lionel Messi, which could have been decisive if Paul Bernardoni had not stopped the Argentine's effort, Ruiz did not weigh in the match in any other capacity.

PSG fans are starting to grow tired of Ruiz's perennial underperforming, rather hoping to see young Warren Zaire-Emery start games in place of the Spaniard. The Paris-trained youngster entered the pitch off the bench last Wednesday though most fans would have preferred him to start the match instead of having to endure another putrid outing by Ruiz.

"We knew it was going to be difficult, even though they are last in the standings. We knew they had a good team, that they knew how to play soccer and that we weren't going to create many chances for ourselves because they close the game down well," Fabian Ruiz told Canal+ after the game.

What is going to be difficult for Ruiz, given his first six months in Paris, is to flip the narrative and avoid becoming persona non grata in the French capital.