It’s a short phrase that means a lot. Coming out of the match against Clermont-Ferrand (1-6), Kylian Mbappé – ball of his hat-trick under his arm – spoke at the microphone of Canal + about the emerging complicity of the attacking trio that he composes with Neymar and Messi “It’s a shame that this is only happening now”.
There are quite a few circumstances and events that caused us to be delayed, but we feel that we are three quality players. We try to help the team as much as possible and that’s what we did today.
Double hat-tricks and deluge of assists
Even if it’s only a match against a weak team from Clermont Foot 63, the figures are there to attest to a high-end meeting of Mbappé, Neymar and Messi. The first two each scored a hat-trick (+ each delivered an assist) and the Argentinian delivered three assists. And clearly, on the ground, the three are giving real signs of agreement. They are looking for each other, they find each other and finally seem happy to evolve all three.
A somewhat late awakening in the season that their coach Mauricio Pochettino justified at the exit of the Gabriel Monpied stadium: “The problem is that many people don’t want to listen. Since the beginning of the season it has been said that it takes time to create automatisms and that they know each other. It takes time on and off the field, that’s what allows you to find chemistry. There is always a time that cannot be determined or reduced.
The argument is more or less admissible but one thing is certain, due to Neymar’s injury absence for more than three months, this trio has ultimately evolved very little together this season. There in two Ligue 1 games, Mbappé.Neymar.Messi scored 11 goals and delivered 8 assists. Asked about the performance of this MNM finally found, the captain of an evening Presnel Kimpembe underlined “Obviously, we’re happy for them but we hope it will continue like this for the rest of the season.”
After the appetizer against Lorient and Clermont-Ferrand, the MNM will pass a real test next Sunday against Olympique de Marseille to see if it is really launched (17-04 at 8:45 p.m.). An evening to shine and maybe also patch things up with part of the Parisian public who still haven’t digested the elimination against Real Madrid in the Champions League. A meeting where the MNM would have done good….