Mbappé always on top
With 5 goals and 4 assists in six days, Kylian Mbappé is advancing at a Ballon d’Or pace. Admittedly, Lorient, swept away at the Parc (5-1), and Clermont Foot, crushed in Auvergne (6-1) are playing the maintenance, but “Kyky” seems impossible to stop at the moment with Paris Saint-Germain.
With a goal on a skillful delivery from Lionel Messi, two goals thanks to his speed, a penalty caused and scored by Neymar, the world champion still offered a recital on Saturday to Gabriel-Montpied.
The long-awaited complicity with “Ney” (3 goals in Clermont) and Messi (three assists) was finally oiled. “It’s a shame that it’s only happening now”, regretted Mbappé, referring to “the circumstances”, the “events which caused us to be a little delayed” in the outbreak of the famous “MNM”: the Brazilian’s international matches and injuries, basically.
Not sure that this harmony is enough to make him stay in Paris less than three months from the end of his contract, on June 30.
He may not break Edison Cavani’s record 200 goals for PSG (Mbappé is 163), but he reclaimed the Ligue 1 top scorer throne with 20, a ranking he won the past three years.
Dembele still decisive
Sunday against Levante (3-2 victory), Ousmane Dembélé once again served a perfect decisive pass from the left for the head of his friend Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (59th, 1-1), enough to revive a badly FC Barcelona team. embarked. With this eleventh “assist” in La Liga, Dembélé joins Karim Benzema at the head of the best passers of the season in Spain, having played thirteen matches less than the center forward of Real Madrid (27 matches against 14).
“He offered a golden cross that led to the first goal and put Barca back in a game that was eluding him. Indispensable ”, summed up the Spanish daily Marca after the match.
“Dembouz” has not been called up to the France team since his serious injury at the Euros, but still dreams of being part of the adventure in Qatar.
Lenglet in trouble
In the same game, his compatriot Clément Lenglet conceded a penalty just seconds after coming on.
Entering in the 81st minute in place of veteran Dani Alves, the central defender immediately crushed the foot of Dani Gomez and caused the third penalty of the match for the “Granotas” converted by Gonzalo Melero… An equalizer at 2-2 finally erased by the head of Luuk de Jong in added time (90th + 2) to snatch the victory.
“He came very close to ruining the Barça match on his first action. (…) A bad day at the office, ”summed up Marca on Sunday evening. “The Lenglet of last season’s gullible penalties is back”, scolded the Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo.
Passed behind Eric Garcia, Gerard Pique, Ronald Araujo or even Oscar Mingueza in the hierarchy of central defenders of Barça, Lenglet has started only 8 times in 19 matches played since the start of the season. Summoned for the last time to the Blues in November 2021, the ex-Sevillian signs a season below his standards in Catalonia and sees the World Cup moving away day after day.