Has Kylian Mbappé lived up to his full potential? | France, Monaco ➡️ PSG ➡️ Real Madrid | Scoreline

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi had seasons where he scored more than 70 goals in all competitions.

I just don't think we're going to see that again.

I really don't.

I think that it's going to be a long time and it will be several Laminia Malls, several Mbappes before we get there.

I don't think Mbappes is on that level.

I really don't.

It's crazy to think that it's been seven years since Kylian Mbappe won the World Cup with France back in 2018.

I suppose a broad question, but a fair one.

Do you believe that he's fulfilled his enormous potential since then?

Well, there is this kind of sliding doors moment where if Randall Colombo puts away a chance, an extra time of the World Cup final in 2022 against Argentina, that we're talking about a two-time World Cup winner, which is...

than the ultimate pantheon of great footballers of all time.

I think we're talking about fulfilling potential.

I think that player that we saw from Monaco at the beginning has turned into a much different player now.

So I think, without question, from a production standpoint, from a continually being in the conversation as one of the best footballers in the world, without question, but I think he was put to a standard that might have been unattainable.

And he's become a different player.

And I think, for the most part, yes.

Because when you talk about being a top five footballer for a period of several years, absolutely fulfilled potential.

But there is still a part of me that misses what that was at the beginning.

And what that was, you remember that crazy long run that he had in the World Cup in 2018?

It was like, what did I just watch?

And I feel like that player is gone.

But I still think in the overall, this is an amazing, amazing player.

He certainly developed his skills as well from that raw talent that we saw at that part of his career.

He obviously put up great numbers in his first season for Real Madrid this season, scored plenty of goals.

I don't think you can really question the output in terms of just the stats.

What do you think he'll be focusing on?

Obviously, the team needs to improve and deliver some trophies, clearly, next season.

What do you think he'll be focusing on in the off-season to really hit the ground running on that first day of the season in La Liga?

For me, it really has to be collaboration.

He has to become a more collaborative player with the players around him, especially when you consider the amount of talent that there is in that team, the amount of talent that surrounds him from an attacking point of view.

When you think about Rodrigo on one side, Vinny on the other, Bellingham in behind him,

He has to be involved more, for me, from a creative standpoint.

Because we look at these goals, numbers over the course of his career, and even his goals scored last season.

If you look at it just from a statistical point of view, you would think he had a great season.

I think in some ways the tenor of which we talk about Mbappe is negative because they got eliminated in the Champions League.

They didn't win La Liga as a collective.

They didn't perform well.

But he held up his end of the bargain individually from a goalscoring standpoint.

I think also in the context that it was the first season.

Yes.

Even for a player of the quality of Kylian Mbappe, you have to say, well, this is the first time he's played.

been playing for them.

The thing, though, I think that people were expecting was a team that won La Liga and a team that won the Champions League was going to go on and become even stronger and even better when there's very little room for them to do that because they're already brilliant.

It's so hard to go from a European champion and a Spanish champion to also a European and a Spanish champion but maybe a little bit better.

I think that was the big thing that a lot of people were grappling with.

But I think when I mentioned earlier about sort of being more collaborative, I think

He finished last season with five assists in all competitions for more than 50 games.

You go back to when he's playing a PSG in his pump.

He had a season of more than 20 assists in all competitions.

He has never had fewer than 10 in a season in which he played the distance.

So I think his assist production has gone way down.

I think as well.

The running isn't quite as dynamic, isn't quite as aggressive and fear striking into the opponent as in the past.

So I think the biggest thing for me is he's got to be involved more with assists and passing the ball and getting others involved.

I think that was the biggest thing that suffered year over year for Real Madrid is those other guys didn't look as good playing with Mbappe as they did playing without him.

And I think that would worry me.

I think that's the biggest thing for Xabi Alonso to solve.

What do you think Xabi Alonso tries to do with him over the summer?

What are the kind of conversations he's going to be having with arguably the best player in this team?

What's he going to try and work on or potentially develop with someone like him?

Well, I mean, the interesting thing is we have seen when Luis Enrique gave him the coaching about defensive work that it didn't really translate into on the pitch.

We didn't see a player that was all of a sudden reborn as this aggressive presser.

And so I think really the thing for any Real Madrid manager, and this is why sometimes I worry about Xabi Alonso as the coach of Real Madrid, is that I do think that there are times where I wonder...

if he is going to be able to really tactically change the team when you're working around the limitations of not just one in Mbappe but several players that aren't very good defensive workers or are great as individuals but not great necessarily as collective players.

So I think that really is the biggest thing is how ultimately do you kind of change the stripes of very foreign players and very successful players at doing what they do and so

How do you get them to be slightly different, to be more part of a team?

So I think that's the biggest thing for him to figure out is how do you actually make that work and actually turn him into more of a team player, more of a player that functions in a collective than he was last season.

A bit like Lamin Yamal, earlier on in Kylian Mbappe's career, we got those comparisons.

Is he going to be as good as Lionel Messi?

Is he going to be as good as Cristiano Ronaldo?

Fast forward those seven or so years to where we are now, where do we sit in the comparison of those careers?

I think there's a level of statistical output that is there.

But I don't think people realize how spoiled we were watching those two at their peak.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Lionel Messi had seasons where he scored more than 70 goals in all competitions.

I just don't think we're going to see that again.

I really don't.

I think that it's going to be a long time.

And it will be several Lamin Yamal, several Mbappes before we get there.

I don't think Mbappes is on that level.

I really don't.

And I think...

It's just because that standard was so high.

We were in a generation where we were incredibly lucky for 15 years to see the top players, some of the greatest players we'll ever see in the history of the sport.

And I just don't think Mbappe is quite there.

But I don't think that's necessarily a criticism of him.

That's just the reality of...

what those two guys represented over the course of several years, over more than a decade, playing for the two biggest clubs in European football, in my opinion, in Barcelona and Real Madrid, to do that season upon season upon season, unerring in their quality.

I just think most players are more fallible.

And so I don't think...

we can reasonably expect Kylian Mbappe to deliver 50 goals and 20 assists every season because that's a ridiculous standard to hold someone to.

So I think until we kind of see it, I think we're seeing the beginnings of it with Jamal, but even he has a level, several levels of production to go to get anywhere near Messi and Ronaldo.

Until we see it...

I think it's unfair.

I think we should judge Mbappe on Mbappe's merits, which is, as an absolutely brilliant footballer and one of the best of the current generation of players.

Got to get to break, but over or under, do we see better numbers from Mbappe next season than we did this season?

I think we might see maybe a little dip in goal scoring, but we will see that increase in assists.

I think we will see him become more of a part of a team than we saw last season.

OK, be interesting to see how he gets on under Xabi Alonso.