Real Madrid legend Karim Benzema has told Kylian Mbappe that he must forget about playing on the left-hand side, because Vinicius Junior is going nowhere. The Brazilian and the Frenchman were tipped to destroy all in front of them this season, but so far it’s been an underwhelming opening to their partnership.
According to Benzema, the central issue derives from the fact that Mbappe is fundamentally not a centre-forward, which is where he has been used so far.
“The problem, for me, is that for me he is not a centre-forward. Mbappe is not that, because every time he plays, for the national team too, at nine, he is not good, it’s not his position. The problem is that on the left, there is a player that is like him, at the same level. So there is a probelm.”
“The thing is you cannot put Vinicius at nine, or on the right, because he makes the difference in games from the left,” Benzema told El Chiringuito.
“I think Ancelotti knows a lot, and he will find the solution. Mbappe is not a true number nine, I understand that people ask a lot of him, and there is a lot of pressure, and it’s true that it’s not a club like Paris Saint-Germain.”
Benzema was also asked if he could give his former international teammate Mbappe some advice.
“What can I say to Kylian… He shouldn’t give up. Because I don’t think he will move Vinicius, because he is the best in the world at the moment, and he can’t be moved, that much is true. Mbappe has to get it into his head that he is a nine now, and forget about the left. And he has to move with Vinicius, if Vinicius comes inside, he goes out, and switch a lot.”
“Mbappe is very, very, very good from the left, but he has to understand he can be very good in other areas of the pitch.”
The Al-Ittihad forward struggled in his first season in the Spanish capital too, after joining Real Madrid from Olympique Lyon. He was often behind Gonzalo Higuain in the pecking order in his opening season.
“It’s different. I was 21. He is 25. It’s not the same thing. But he knows that it’s different at Real Madrid, that if you don’t score for two or three games, they’ll kill you. He can win the Ballon d’Or, and three games later, again. He has to learn to live with that, and put a ‘good pressure’ on himself. Every game is a new game, and he has to score goals, because that is what they brought him for. [The pressure at Madrid] is very, very forceful.”
Certainly it is a headache for Carlo Ancelotti, who has tried to maximise Vinicius and Mbappe by speeding up Real Madrid’s build-up, and giving them space to run into. There is little doubt that the flashes of Mbappe that have been most impressive are from the inside left position. In the past, Mbappe has made it clear that he is not especially comfortable operating through the middle, despite the fact that he has been used there by both Mauricio Pochettino and Luis Enrique in his final seasons at Paris Saint-Germain.