A promise is a debt which must be kept.
If you promise your child a bicycle if he emerges as the best student in his class, don’t buy him a toy gun.
If you promise your partner a pizza on her birthday, don’t buy him or her puff puff.
If Paris Saint Germain promised Kylian Mbappe before he signed a new contract in the summer that he won’t be played as a lone striker, that Neymar would be offloaded, and that they would get a centre back, then those promises must be kept.
Don’t forget that Fiorentino Perez couldn’t persuade Mbappe to leave the French capital for Spain because Nasser Al-Khelaifi ( Paris Saint-Germain’s President) and his entourage promised Kylian Mbappe heaven and earth if he signed a new contract.
Mbappe didn’t just make those demands, he made them because those were what he felt could make him the best player in the world and equally make Paris Saint Germain the best club in the world.
Let me explain.
Kylian’s primary demand was that he didn’t feel comfortable playing as a lone striker and that the club should get a new striker to pair him upfront just like he does with the French national team with Karim Benzema or Olivier Giroud.
Getting a new striker would also mean Kylian could play from the flanks where he could exploit the space between the centre-back and the full-back.
While Mbappe has played the majority of his club career as a central forward, stats show that he is equally good playing as a winger (particularly as a left winger) or as a supporting striker.
He has played 172 times as a striker netting 138 goals and registering 71 assists which is a 1.2-goal contribution(goal or assist) per game. In contrast, he has scored 74 goals and assisted 42 in 117 appearances playing as a winger or a supporting striker which is 0.99 goal contribution per game.
This leads me to the next point. The desire to play as a winger is one of the reasons he wants Neymar out of the club. Neymar plays from the left wing which is the position Kylian would occupy with Messi playing from the other flank. The other reason is that he and Neymar no longer love each other Ridiculous right?
Then, they could have told him that they needed him and Neymar and not promised of letting Neymar go.
Kylian Mbappe also wanted the club to sign a centre-back to bolster the defensive options of the team, a demand which is not without its merit.
PSG have Sergio Ramos( a retiree in waiting), Presnel Kimpembe and Marcos Aoas Correa known as Marquinhos as the only centre-back options at the club which is not good enough for a club that wants to challenge for all honours.
The injury to Kimpembe has forced Christophe Galtier, the PSG coach to play Danilo Pereira, a midfielder in his 3-man defence in recent weeks. Mbappe knew what he was saying, right?
When you look at these demands carefully, it is aimed at getting the best out of Mbappe(by playing in his natural position) and the best out of the club (by signing a centre-back). It is a false narrative that this was all about Mbappe’s desire to satisfy his ego.
No matter how ridiculous his demands might sound, Paris Saint Germain accepted those demands and should have kept their promises. If they felt his demands were ridiculous, then they should have let him leave for Real Madrid in the summer.
The only reason he signed a contract extension was that he made these demands and the club agreed to grant them. This is no different from your employer failing to honour your terms of employment.
Therefore Kylian Mbappe is right to be angry and demand an exit from the French capital and on that hill, I stand, what about you?
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