“We have to get used to playing without Kylian Mbappé,” warned Paris SG coach Luis Enrique after the draw against Rennes on Sunday during the 23rd day of Ligue 1 (1-1), during which he replaced his superstar by the hour of play. Asked about the rarity of such a decision since the arrival in 2017 of the prolific scorer, who recently announced to the managers his departure from the club next summer, Luis Enrique replied: “It must arrive sooner or later… We have to get used to playing without Kylian Mbappé.”
“I am very demanding of the players,” says Luis Enrique
On February 16, Luis Enrique refused to react to the announced but not yet official departure of the French international. Gonçalo Ramos, who replaced Mbappé, equalized from a penalty late in the match to prevent PSG from their second defeat in the league this season. Replacing his entire attacking trio, with in addition to Mbappé the exit of Dembélé and Barcola, had a meaning, confided Luis Enrique: “It’s a message for everyone, I am very demanding of the players. If you think that I will accept that ‘A player relaxes on the pitch, no. I want that, when you start, you say to yourself ‘I want to take advantage of it'”.
“It was a complicated match from the start, we were more imprecise than usual, less inspired, but precision cannot be had every day,” judged Luis Enrique. “But I really liked the attitude of the team, until the last minute,” he added, noting that “the opponent hardly went beyond the halfway line” of the match. “We perhaps lacked mobility without the ball, we had difficulty creating chances… The draw is a logical result,” concluded the Parisian coach.
Is he worried before the trip to Monaco on Friday and then to San Sebastian on March 5 in C1? “I’m not concerned, I love it, I would like all the matches to be like these. The more difficult the matches, the better for us” in order to progress, he explained. For his part, Rennes coach Julien Stéphan declared: “This result frustrates us” given the “performance of the players” and the “way in which we concede the penalty, these are penalties for big teams, or in certain stadiums. ..”