Mbappe glad to have finally found form at Real Madrid

MADRID : Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe has been in inspired form with four goals in their last three games and said on Tuesday it took him longer than expected to play like his old self after moving from Paris St Germain as he adjusted to a new team.

Mbappe added that the most difficult challenge since arriving at the Bernabeu in the close season was overthinking and not focusing his efforts in the right direction.

The 26-year-old said Real's 2-1 LaLiga defeat at Athletic Bilbao in early December, when the forward missed his second penalty in a week, was a turning point.

"I believe it was a mentality issue and that was a point I realised that I had to work harder," Mbappe told a press conference ahead of Wednesday's Champions League clash at home to Salzburg.

"I was thinking too much about how to do things. Whether to go into space, whether to go to Vini's (Vinicius Jr's) area of the pitch, to Rodrygo's area ... when you overthink you don't focus on your game.

"I was fine physically and with the group but I knew I had to do more, that was the time to change the situation. I didn't come to Madrid to play badly. Here we have to play well all the time and now I am ready to do that.

"I felt bad because I'm a player who always wants to do more and when you don't perform in that level it's normal to get targeted. I knew that it could happen and in the end it was a good moment because after that game I changed my mentality.

"I couldn't do any worse, so when you hit rock bottom you can only go up," he added.

Having scored only three times in Real's 12 matches in all competitions up to and including the Bilbao game, Mbappe has since found his shooting boots and now has 12 LaLiga goals - to stand second in the scoring charts - and 17