Monday, December 2, 2024, 12:26
He has nine goals in 18 games. They are not bad figures for a forward. But they are far from meeting expectations. Especially if you take into account the number of shots that Kylian Mbappé needs to score a goal. “He is in that anxiety process in which when he touches the ball he wants to make the play of his life,” Jorge Valdano, former player and former coach of Real Madrid, analyzed a few days ago about a player who in recent times has been seen to lack confidence, luck and aim, especially since the controversial trip to Stockholm, from which he seems not to have returned.
The numbers confirm that the killer needs to kill. Bondy’s star even refused to take a penalty against Getafe at the Santiago Bernabéu because he missed the previous one, against Liverpool at Anfield. With Vinicius out for between three and four weeks due to injury, the French international will have even more pressure to carry the Real Madrid offensive and to do so he must reverse a statistic that generates anxiety. He is the forward who finishes the most in Spain and the second in the major European leagues. And also the one who needs more scoring chances to put the ball into the goal, twice as many as the volcanic striker from Fluminense. Figures very different from those he had in Paris when for seven years he was the object of desire by Florentino and the Chamartín entity.
There are 84 shots by the Parisian between the League and the Champions League, well ahead of the Pichichi in Spain Robert Lewandowski (66 shots) and somewhat below Erling Haaland (92). The French striker finds the goal every 9.3 times. The Pole is finer, and only needs 3 attempts to make the nets shake, while City’s Norwegian does it every 5.4 shots. Other powerful strikers on the European scene also clearly improve the figures. Bayern attacker Harry Kane only needs 3.5 chances to score a goal, and the proof is in the 68 shots he has needed to score 19 goals between the Bundesliga and the Champions League. In Serie A, Mateo Retegui, from Atalanta, the Whites’ next rival in the Champions League, needs only 4.2 chances to score, after having 59 shots and celebrating 14 goals to date.
Only in LaLiga, the 14 players who occupy the national Pichichi with him, have been more accurate in their shots this season, among them Raphinha, from Barcelona (5.2 chances for a goal), Budimir, from Osasuna, Puado, from Espanyol , or Solorth, from Atlético de Madrid with 4.8, Ayoze, from Villarreal (2.8), Sancet, from Athletic de Bilbao (2.7); Aspas, from Celta (6) or Lukébakio, from Sevilla (8).
Real Madrid is unconditionally on the side of its star, expected for years, after the failure at Anfield and forgave him for the grotesque errors that demonstrated the lack of finesse that still accompanies him against Bordalás’ team, rewarding his insistence throughout the match. «He was active, dangerous and scored a great goal that was important to control the rest of the game. That’s what we want from him,” insisted Carlo Ancelotti, who certainly does not have the same delicacy with other lesser weights in the locker room. «The fans understand the moment of the team and the players more than anyone. He could have done better against Liverpool and they have supported him, as was fair,” said the man from Reggiolo about the Frenchman who left important statistics about the difficulties he is suffering in this first third of the season in the Madrid coliseum. The Frenchman has been caught offside 21 times in his 13 LaLiga games played, one more than in the 29 Ligue 1 games he played all of last season with Paris Saint-Germain.
At the moment, the Castellana tour is far from seeing the best version of Mbappé, absent in Didier Deschamps’ last two calls and who in his last two campaigns in France did not exceed five chances per game to score a goal. The new Madrid star celebrated a goal every 4.8 shots between the Champions League and Ligue 1 in both the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons, where he scored 35 and 36 goals respectively. Similar to what happened in the 21/22 campaign, in which he finished with 34 goals and scoring a goal every 5 times, a figure similar to what he obtained in 19/20, although he played thirteen fewer games. His best year was the 20/21 season, where he scored a goal every 3.8 times, finishing the year with 35 goals and 41 games played.
Ancelotti says that “it is a matter of time” for the striker to recover and improve the effectiveness of this unstoppable player who overwhelms any defense. Success or failure will ultimately be determined by the number of goals he scores at the end of the season.
