There are nights when a favourite merely wins, and there are nights when it declares intent. This was firmly the latter. Paris Saint-Germain announced their arrival in the Champions League with a performance of clinical, almost casual brutality, dismantling Slovan Bratislava 6-1 at a purring Parc des Princes on Wednesday evening.

The scoreline barely conveys how one-sided the contest felt once it had settled into its rhythm. By half-time PSG had scored three; within twelve minutes of the restart they had scored three more. Slovan, making their way in unfamiliar surroundings, were swept aside by a home side moving through the gears with terrifying ease.

At the heart of it all stood Ousmane Dembélé, twice a scorer and twice a creator, and Ferran Torres, who left the pitch clutching the match ball. Between them they accounted for five of the six goals, a partnership that carved Slovan open again and again and never once looked like relenting.

Dembélé sets the tone

The breakthrough arrived on 17 minutes and it came, fittingly, from Dembélé. A corner was worked into the danger zone and the forward met it with his left foot from the centre of the box, guiding the ball low into the bottom right corner. The Parc des Princes had barely finished celebrating before it was on its feet again.

Six minutes later Dembélé had his second, and this one required nothing more than instinct and positioning. From very close range he headed home into the bottom left corner, doubling the lead and settling any lingering nerves about the night ahead. Two goals in twenty-three minutes had turned a European tie into an exhibition.

Then came the twist that shaped the evening. Dembélé, no longer content merely to score, turned provider. On 31 minutes his cross found Ferran Torres unmarked at the far post, and the Spaniard swept it in from very close range to make it three. The half-time whistle could not come quickly enough for the visitors.

Torres runs riot

Whatever Slovan discussed at the interval was undone within two minutes of the resumption. Maghnes Akliouche slid a pass into Torres's path, and this time the finish came from distance, a right-footed strike from outside the box that nestled into the bottom right corner. Four-nil, and the game was long gone.

On 57 minutes Torres completed his hat-trick, and once more Dembélé was the architect. Another corner, another cross from the Frenchman, and Torres was on hand in the centre of the box to convert into that same bottom right corner he seemed to have claimed as his own. Three goals, all placed with the same unhurried precision, all a study in the value of arriving at the right moment.

For a fleeting spell Slovan found a reply. Barely a minute after Torres's third, Suleiman Camara collected a pass from Tigran Barseghyan and drilled a right-footed shot from the left side of the box high into the top right corner. It was a fine finish, a moment of dignity, and it reminded the Parc des Princes that the visitors had not come merely to be spectators.

A statement of intent

That consolation, though, did nothing to alter the trajectory of the evening. PSG absorbed it and pressed on, and in the 87th minute they had their sixth. Fabián Ruiz, arriving in the centre of the box from a corner, struck a left-footed shot into the bottom left corner to round off the scoring in emphatic fashion.

Six goals, three of them stemming from set pieces, spoke to a side that had prepared meticulously and executed without mercy. Dembélé's fingerprints were everywhere, whether finishing or delivering, and Torres's clinical streak turned dominance into a landslide. Even Ruiz's late intervention felt less like a flourish than an inevitability.

For all the flair on display, the most striking quality was the ruthlessness. PSG did not ease off after three, or four, or five. They kept probing, kept attacking, kept hunting for more, and Slovan simply had no answer to the relentless quality of the movement in front of them.

The road ahead

The result leaves Paris Saint-Germain top of the table on three points, with six goals scored and only one conceded from their opening fixture. It is the kind of statement start that reverberates across the competition, a marker laid down for every side harbouring ambitions of going deep. Goal difference, so often decisive in the closing weeks of the group phase, has been handsomely served.

For Slovan Bratislava, the picture could scarcely be starker. They sit 36th, pointless, with a solitary goal to show for their efforts and six shipped in a chastening evening. Camara's strike will offer a sliver of encouragement, proof that they can trouble the very best, but the gulf in class on display was impossible to ignore.

There is little time to dwell. The Champions League grants no reprieve, and both sides must regroup quickly for what comes next. PSG will travel with menace and a swagger fully earned; Slovan must find resilience, and fast, before this campaign slips away from them entirely.

On this evidence, though, the two clubs are journeying in opposite directions. One looked every inch a contender, purring with intent and depth. The other was left to reflect on a night when the size of the task ahead was laid bare in six unforgiving strokes.