It was not the Kylian Mbappé of the big nights who showed up on Saturday in Reims (0-0). Not successful in front of goal and silent for the second time in a row in the Parisian jersey, the striker seemed to drag his spleen at times while displaying great nervousness at the end of the boiling game.
A frustration that he apparently wanted to express then on his Instagram account. In the wake of the meeting, he split the following message in story: “Draw, meeting Tuesday, #icicestparis #pivotgang”. And it is this last hashtag used by Kylian Mbappé that caught the attention of the followers of the Parisian club. A direct allusion to his role as “pivot” within the team’s offensive animation.
While the question of its use with the PSG had returned to the carpet during the last gathering of the French team, it is difficult not to see it as a spade against the choices of Christophe Galtier, who lined up again at the forefront of the attack this weekend.
An exchange with Galtier in the first period
At the heart of the first period, a few minutes before the expulsion of Sergio Ramos, Mbappé had approached his coach to ask him for explanations on the animation of the game. With a closed face, the world champion was visibly very annoyed by lack of team performance.
At the end of France’s match against Austria on September 22, Mbappé had already spoken of this role of “pivot” that he evokes this weekend on his social networks. “I have a lot more freedom (in the France team), the coach (Didier Deschamps) knows that there is a number 9 like Olive (Giroud), who occupies the defenses, and I can walk around, go in space, ask for the balloons… In Paris, it’s different, there isn’t that, I’m asked to do the pivot”, explained Mbappé before confiding “having fun everywhere”.
His performance in Reims and this new release on the networks have in any case put a coin in the machine and relaunched the debate around his preferential position in the capital…