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 outings – but things are not believed to be quite as rosy behind the scenes.
Numerous reports from France have accused the pair of clashing on a number of occasions, while Mbappe has even admitted that his relationship with Neymar is ‘hot and cold’.
Now, Campos has conceded that spending so much money on two similar players may not have been the wisest move by PSG – Neymar arrived for €222m in 2017, with Mbappe arriving on loan that same summer with a €180m transfer following in 2018.
“We made the mistake in the past 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 lack players in key positions and because we have an overlap of players in other positions.”
As well as Mbappe and Neymar, Campos may have been referring to the club’s overload in goal, where Gianluigi Donnarumma and Keylor Navas have been competing for minutes over the past year – the latter usually losing that battle.
Neymar remains under contract at Parc des Princes until 2025, with the 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 during the summer which was also said to run until 2025, but reports in France have claimed only the first two years of that deal are guaranteed and the forward has the option to walk away in 2024.