Paris Saint-Germain advisor Luis Campos has claimed the French side made a mistake by spending so much money on both Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, given the pair’s similar playing styles.
Both are enjoying outstanding individual seasons on the pitch – Neymar has 11 goals and eight assists from 11 games, while Mbappe has ten goals in nine games – but behind the scenes, it’s not believed to be all that rosy.
Numerous reports from France have accused the pair of clashing on numerous occasions, while Mbappe has even admitted that his relationship with Neymar is “hot and cold”.
Campos has now admitted that spending so much money on two similar players may not have been PSG’s wisest move – Neymar arrived for €222m in 2017, with Mbappe arriving on loan the same summer and a €180m transfer followed in 2018.
“In the past we made the mistake of recruiting two players in the same position,” he told RMC Sport’s Rothen s’enflamme podcast.
“The transfer window is not good because we are missing players in key positions and because we have overlapping players in other positions.
Like Mbappe and Neymar, Campos may have been referring to the club’s overload in goal, where Gianluigi Donnarumma and Keylor Navas have competed for minutes in the past year – the latter usually losing that battle.
Neymar remains under contract at the Parc des Princes until 2025 with an option for a further year and is enjoying perhaps the best form of his career to date under new coach Christophe Galtier.
As for Mbappe, he penned an extension over the summer that was also due to run until 2025, but reports in France have claimed that only the first two years of that deal are guaranteed, with the forward having the option to leave in 2024.
