Last night’s 5-2 win over Montpellier saw Neymar continue his stellar run of form for Paris Saint-Germain, scoring a double and continuing to combine well with Lionel Messi. Less inspiring, though, was Kylian Mbappé’s return to action, despite scoring one and assisting another, as the Frenchman appeared off the pace, missing a penalty and appearing frustrated at times.
L’Équipe and RMC would report after the game that the forward had experienced “personal issues” beforehand but still wanted to play a part in the first home match of the season. His manager Christophe Galtier would go on to explain that Mbappé was not at full capacity yet physically, but did not make any mention of other problems. For Marco Verratti, his teammate’s irritation at missing the penalty was a sign of how much he cares for the team.
After the game though, a series of tweets liked by Neymar indicated a deeper problem within the dressing room, as yet another “penaltygate” appears to have reared its head at PSG.
Among the tweets – in Portuguese – liked by the Brazilian, one claimed that: “Now it’s official, Mbappé is the one who takes penalties at PSG. Clearly it’s a contract thing, because in no club in the world would Neymar be the second taker. It seems that because of his contract, Mbappé is the owner of PSG!”
Another claimed that Christophe Galtier had indicated after the game that Mbappé would be the main penalty taker this season – this was not the case, given that the manager simply explained that the Mbappé-Neymar order was simply decided for this game alone – “moving foward, we’ll see.”
GFFN
