40 points scored after 17 days, 42 goals scored, a first place in Ligue 1 five steps ahead of OGC Nice, qualification assured for the round of 16 of the Champions League where Paris Saint-Germain will return to the Real Sociedad. Looking at the start of the capital club’s 2023-2024 financial year, it’s difficult to get your hair tied in knots. However, if the sporting results of the French champions cause certain optimism for many observers, other aspects give rise to some anxiety. With this in mind, how can we not mention the future of Kylian Mbappé in the City of Lights, at a time when we recently told you exclusively that the Bondynois had (finally) reached an agreement with Real Madrid. If this dropped bomb is enough to frighten the Rouge et Bleu, another point seems to provoke skepticism from Parisian supporters: the number 9 position.
After the departures of Neymar and Lionel Messi, the team chaired by Nasser al-Khelaïfi did not skimp on the means to redesign its offensive sector. Result, in addition to the arrivals of Marco Asensio and Ousmane Dembélé on the attacking front, the capital club offered itself Gonçalo Ramos (22 years old) and Randal Kolo Muani (25 years old) for 150 million euros. Just that. Two real 9s, ready to take PSG to other skies. However, it is clear that after six months spent in the French capital, the results remain more mixed than ever. If the French international (13 caps, 2 goals) can boast of 7 goals and 2 goals in 20 matches in all competitions and the Seleção scorer (10 caps, 7 goals), for his part, totals 4 goals and 1 assist in 19 matches, Luis Enrique today mainly trusts Kylian Mbappé for the center forward position. A curious choice on the part of the Spanish technician, who more so after having validated, last summer, the arrival of these two profiles.
Ramos and Kolo Muani, two profiles validated by Luis Enrique!
In this context, The Team indicates, this Thursday, that the former coach of La Roja does not perceive, today, the two recruits as players capable of responding to his thoughts – very specific – around the number 9 position. Why, then, have opted for these two scorers, today confined to a substitute role or a few crumbs in positions other than the expected one? A questioning discrepancy, all the more so at a time when the French daily recalls, for example, that the new Parisian coach had taken care to call the former Eintracht Frankfurt player to convince him to come to Paris. An even more surprising choice when we know the numerous debates which have surrounded, for five weeks now, the freedom granted to Kylian Mbappé in attack and his ability to maximize his performance in this specific position.
Thus, if Luis Enrique continues to publicly support his two protégés, regularly criticized for their difficulties in highlighting themselves within the Ile-de-France collective, this downgrading would respond to a simple logic in the eyes of the Spanish technician: these two players do not stick to this that the staff requests for the most advanced position of the attack. A terrible snub and a distressing paradox given the crazy sums spent to attract the French and the Portuguese. It now remains to be seen whether the recent tenure of the Franco-Portuguese duo against Revel in the Coupe de France (9-0, January 7) can be seen as a new dynamic created by the ex-Barça coach… Nothing is less secure. Indeed, The Team specifies, with this in mind, that Luis Enrique, in private, does not hide it: “his choice to place Mbappé number 9 for five weeks, and therefore to regularly relegate Ramos and Kolo Muani to the bench, responds to a logic of adaptation”.
For now, Kylian Mbappé – “who will keep a low profile until his decision” (on its future, editor’s note) – has never called into question its current axial positioning. If the 2018 world champion therefore represents, today, the main alternative for the new Ile-de-France tactician, another solution could also be tested in the weeks to come with Marco Asensio. Having passed through Real Madrid, the Spanish international – who has not always convinced at the start of the season and has also had to deal with an injury – would, in fact, be the player who fits the most with the profile of a central attacker such as that Luis Enrique defines it. One thing is certain, if the performance of Randal Kolo Muani and Gonçalo Ramos has been regularly singled out in recent months, it cannot be completely detached from the playing philosophy desired by the new architect of the club and could therefore explain, in part, this difficult adaptation. A gap of €150 million all the same…
