It has been more than a year – since PSG’s victory (7-1) against Lille in August 2022 – that Kylian Mbappé has not left a Ligue 1 stadium with the match ball – a privilege granted to a player when he scores at least three goals in a match. The French striker put an end to this long drought on Saturday, November 11, by scoring a hat-trick at the Auguste-Delaune stadium in Reims. This victory (3-0), combined with Nice’s draw in Montpellier the day before, allowed PSG to move into the leadership chair for the first time this season.
But PSG coach Luis Enrique publicly made it known that this performance had not entirely satisfied him. “I’m not very happy with Kylian today. On the goals, I have nothing to say, but I think he can help the team differently, he reacted after the meeting, speaking to Prime Video. Kylian is one of the best players in the world, but we need more. This is my opinion, maybe I’m wrong. » The famous video where Mbappé pronounces his iconic “Are you not happy? Triplet”, in 2018, will no longer have the same effect.
Facing Will Still’s playing team, the 24-year-old striker himself recognized, before his coach’s declaration, that he could do better. “Of course it feels good to score a hat-trick, but the most important thing is to have a good feeling in the game. In all humility, I don’t need to play well to score, but what I want to play well and score,” he explained to the broadcaster at the final whistle. The Bondynois, who showed several gestures of annoyance during the meeting, offered significant technical waste in the throw-ins and, at times, failed to release his ball at the right time. At the end of the match, Kylian Mbappé missed a face-to-face and hit the crossbar in the space of a few minutes.
This hat-trick allows him to be, more than ever, the top scorer in the championship, with thirteen goals in eleven matches, ahead of Montpellier’s Nigerian striker Akor Adams (7 goals). These statements overshadow a performance where Mbappé still scored three times. The French international also sublimely opened the scoring with a volley (1-0, 3rd) which recalls his equalizer against Argentina in the World Cup final. He then concluded well the offerings of Carlos Soler (2-0, 59th) and Bradley Barcola (3-0, 82nd).
“I ask him not to rest on his laurels.”
Sensing the potential controversy, PSG officials hastened, in the minutes that followed, to put the significance of Luis Enrique’s remarks into perspective, emphasizing the positive side of the dig. The coach himself had less sharp words afterwards, at a press conference: “Kylian Mbappé, we know his value, but he can do better, I ask even more of him. He is a top player in the world but he still has room for improvement, I ask him not to rest on his laurels. »
Luis Enrique may have remembered that the PSG striker is still in a special contractual situation, where his contract expires at the end of the season. The club surely wants to do everything to retain and extend its star before the end of the 2023-2024 financial year. Previously, Kylian Mbappé had rarely, if ever, been pushed around by one of his coaches in Paris. “The most important thing was playing football, the rest, I leave it to you [the media], you do it well, I don’t want to say things to overfeed,” he told about his future after the meeting.
These criticisms come in the context of his failed performance, four days previously, in Milan, in the Champions League (2-1 defeat by PSG), where the coach did not blame his attacker for his missed opportunities. Critics have a better time on a night of victory and “hat-trick”. Author, for the moment, of two goals in four matches in the “Big Ears Cup”, Kylian Mbappé will have to do better in this competition to avoid PSG a first elimination in the group stage since the arrival of the Qataris in the capital.
