Mbappé questioned in France: "When are you off on your holidays?"
An article in Le Parisien questions the attitude of the France and PSG striker, who is sought after by Real Madrid.
Not everyone in France is as enthusiastic about Kylian Mbappé as the rest of the world is about the young PSG star. The reason? His alleged change in attitude since he won the World Cup and became one of the very hottest names in world football at just 20 years of age.
Mbappé attacked in Le Parisien
Dominique Sévérac, writing in Le Parisien, has now attacked the player in an article entitled "Mbappé, when are you off on your holidays?", in which he criticises various aspects of the player's behaviour.
First up, the most recent France game, the 2-0 loss to Turkey, in which Mbappé lost the ball 22 times, his worst ever performance in that respect for his country. "It's an unexpected record to set. Maybe the worst performance of his 32 caps, with more individual than collective actions on his part. And the moves he did start well he ended up wasting due to selfishness or lack of intelligence". And not content with just that game, the journalist says in his previous game, the friendly against Bolivia, Mbappé was already showing worrying symptoms.
Mbappé "loses concentration"
The author of the piece says Mbappé loses concentration at times, with damaging consequences for his team, such as when he was sent off against Nimes and Rennes. "He's struggling with the famous reaction to the World Cup. Over the season he's shown an unusual anger, which translated into red cards against Nimes in August and recently against Rennes".
Over and about that Sévérac now feels that he has detected something in Mbappé's state of mind: "Due to his body language - the King of Bondy [Mbappé's neighbourhood] has smiled little recently. The day before the training session (for the friendly against Nantes) he seemed more interested in shooting than in the fitness exercises, hardly taking part and showing little enthusiasm in the warm up. Maybe he's fed up".
Mbappé "hates losing"
Sévérac says the change in the youngster can be noticed above all when things don't go well for him and gives as an example the warning he got from the club: "When things don't go as he wants them to, he closes up more than he opens up. When he asked for more responsibility at the UNFP awards it's often taken as him being presumptuous, while he says it was for the good of the club. He's just lost the Golden Shoe to Messi and he's not used to coming second. He can't stomach it. He hates losing and at times he's like a boy who's angry after a bad night".
On the back of all this, the article finishes talking about what Mbappé is risking if he keeps behaving like this, and what Didier Deschamps should do for the next France game: "Some see a lack of humility. Something his France teammates sometimes see too. Maybe tomorrow he should be worried about Deschamps' rotations, as he's not been on the bench since 26 June 2018".