Former Paris Saint-Germain standout Kylian Mbappe is off to a slow start with Real Madrid as the player adapts to his new club and league. However, playing for arguably the biggest club in the world, the patience won’t last long.
Mbappe has yet to score in his first three La Liga matches, while the player tasked to replace him at PSG, Bradley Barcola, has three, including a brace against Montpellier Hérault SC last week.
So, why has the player struggled and not hit the ground running? On ESPN FC Live, Shaka Hislop shared his thoughts on what could turn into a concerning situation if the Frenchman doesn’t get going.
“There’s no question that Kylian Mbappe is an extraordinary talent,” Hislop said. “Yet I just feel that at times he hasn’t run at defenders like you associate him with doing. He just hasn’t been with the kind of fluidity and tempo that we know that Kylian Mbappe can.
“And I don’t understand it. I don’t know if he just needs that first goal to kind of shed some of maybe the nervousness about this move to Real Madrid. I just didn’t see this coming and it’s difficult to explain. And again, I’m just going to put it down as a player desperately in need of that first goal, a player who all of a sudden is subject to the same kind of mortal frailties that we all have from time to time.”
Real Madrid will face Real Betis on Saturday, and it’s an opportunity for PSG’s all-time leading goal scorer to get off of this slow start. However, another goalless game could see the critics get louder, and the player has to handle more early adversity.
