Kylian Mbappé needs to check his ego but PSG could have avoided this mess

“I didn’t like playing on the wing at Barcelona, but if the coach asks you to do something, you do it for the good of the team,” said Thierry Henry. “There’s something bigger than everything else – the club.” That was Henry’s reaction to reports that Kylian Mbappé feels “betrayed” by PSG over failed promises and wants to leave the club in January, just 16 games after signing a new contract. Although PSG have dismissed the reports as merely rumour, they could have avoided this situation.

Mbappe’s new contract was unprecedented. Not only is the 23-year-old set to become the world’s highest paid footballer, he was reportedly handed unprecedented status within the club’s hierarchy on decision making and recruitment. However, just five months after his new deal was triumphantly announced to a jubilant Parc des Princes, Mbappé feels promises made about his place in the team, summer signings and his influence on the club have not been kept. The Frenchman was told he would be the leader, which he believes is not now the case.

Mbappé is no long the grinning teenager who exploded on to the scene at Monaco. Although a polished media performer with a well curated persona on social media, he increasingly appears self-important and even overbearing. It must be challenging to keep your ego in check when the country’s president asks you not to change jobs for the good of the nation, but Mbappé memorably stopped running and turned away in frustration having not been passed to during a PSG counterattack against Montpellier earlier this season and named himself as second favourite for the Ballon d’Or (admittedly, perhaps correctly) behind Karim Benzema. Teammate Neymar has also been angered by this egotism.

On the field, despite draws in