Kylian Mbappé has hit back at critics of his work off the ball. The Real Madrid and France star argues that a player used to delivering excellence for years becomes an easy target: people fixate on what he doesn't provide rather than what he does well.
Speaking to French newspaper "L'Équipe", Mbappé said: "I think this is not normal, but this is the life of someone who has lived excellence for years. I am no longer anything new. Everyone has known for years what I can do. And I think this is the human side of it."
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He continued: "It is natural for people to always look at what someone does not do. When he has been doing it for 10 years, people no longer look at what he does. They know he is capable of doing it. So they always try to look at what he does not do. And from that moment, this is not something I take personally."
On criticism in general, the Real Madrid striker said: "I have a balanced approach to criticism. There is constructive criticism, and there is illogical criticism. Criticism does not scare me, and when I make a decision, I do not think about the possibility of being criticised. If I know the decision is right for me, or even if it is not but it is necessary, then my career has proven that I keep moving forward."
Some claim the team might suffer because of him, despite his glut of goals. The former Paris Saint-Germain man was having none of it: "This argument seems less logical to me. If I do not score, they will ask me why I am not scoring."
"I have learned that when you are a footballer, there are millions of coaches who have an opinion on every match, and not all of them are happy in their homes," he added. "Everyone has their point of view, but I believe the aim of football is to score goals, and to score more than your opponent."
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