With reports regarding the forward’s next move intensification, his manager’s recent comments have only stoked the fire leading into 2024
Luis Enrique just couldn’t resist. He had been handed, in journalistic terms, the easiest question possible: Is Kylian Mbappe the best player in the world? A simple ‘yes’, or perhaps more controversial ‘not quite’ would have sufficed. It was, effectively, an opportunity to heap praise on his star man.
And how could he not? Mbappe had just bagged a hat-trick against Reims, leading the Parisians through what should have been a tricky contest with relative ease to ensure they went into the international break sat top of Ligue 1.
His manager, though, had a different view: “I am not very happy with Kylian today. Why? Because managers are so strange. About goals, I don’t have to say anything, but I think he can help the team more in a different way. I told that to him first (before you) because it’s not a private conversation. We think Kylian is one of the best players in the world. No doubt. But we need more and we want him to do more things.”
In isolation, with any other club, and perhaps even any other player in Paris, Luis Enrique’s comments would be reasonable. Although football, in recent months, has had a difficult relationship with managers airing their grievances with players in public — just ask Jadon Sancho — honesty is, objectively a good thing.
But this is no ordinary club, and no ordinary players. Mbappe, considered as a multiple-Ballon d’Or winner in the making, has spent most of the last three seasons going to war with PSG off the field, while doing enough on it to make himself indispensable. He has forced at least one manager out of a job, impacted recruitment policy, and manipulated the Parisians so efficiently in contract negotiations that the club was forced into widespread celebration after agreeing on a deal that saw them pay Mbappe the transfer budget of most teams just to stay for a couple more years.
In short, Luis Enrique has picked a fight with the wrong guy. Mbappe could, at any minute, decide to leave. Saturday’s comments have already intensified always reports about Mbappe’s future, whipping up talk of a potential transfer elsewhere this summer, and although this circus was going to reopen, the PSG coach might have started selling tickets before anyone was quite ready.
When it comes to what he was specifically pointing out after the Reims win, Luis Enrique has a point. Mbappe is one of the best in the world when he, or his team, has the ball. Off it, though, he is effectively a liability.
The image of the disgruntled superstar striker who doesn’t run is perhaps slightly overblown. Passengers don’t really exist in football these days — mostly because they can’t. Even Erling Haaland, Mbappe’s most apparent rival for the arbitrary title of ‘striker most likely to put the ball in the net at any given situation’, is willing to run for his team (he led the Premier League in final-third pressures for a good chunk of the 2022-23 season.)
Still, Mbappe is the closest thing outside of Cristiano Ronaldo to the stereotypical disinterested megastar. It was clear for France at the World Cup in 2022, when Didier Deschamps was forced to move Mbappe from the left wing into a central position, mostly because he wouldn’t track the opposition’s full-back — a weakness exploited by first England in the last eight, and then Argentina in the final.
For PSG, it’s even more problematic. There are out-of-context screenshots on social media that show Mbappe looking the other way as a defender runs past him with the ball at his feet. There are the short clips that show Mbappe gesticulating to a team-mate, a plea to put in the legwork that he refuses to undergo.
And then, there are the numbers. Mbappe is among the worst pressing forwards in Europe. Against Reims, he made no tackles, and didn’t register any ‘defensive actions’ (a stat that includes tackles, interceptions and clearances.) Goncalo Ramos, playing through the middle, made five. Ousmane Dembele, on the other wing, made four. Over the last 365 days, Mbappe ranks in the 10th percentile or lower in tackles, blocks and clearances, according to FBRef.
Mbappe does indeed run, at times. He will pressure a defender — assuming that he is close enough. And he’s not entirely immune to tracking back, either. Add in the fact that he is generally asked to stay high and wide in order to spring counter-attacks, and his numbers are bound to be skewed.
Still, there is a middle ground to be found between his specific instructions and the general demands of a modern forward. Mbappe tends to stay away from it.