Mbappe is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury sustained in late April against Real Betis, making him a doubt for Sunday’s Clasico against Barcelona.<\/p>\n
Los Blancos must win that game to prevent Barca from winning the league.<\/p>\n
Ordinarily, that would be the main concern. Instead, much of the recent focus has been on what’s happened away from the training ground.<\/p>\n
The France forward was given time off last week and decided to travel to Sardinia during his recovery period. It was a trip that, while approved by the club, did not sit well with supporters given the timing.<\/p>\n
Photographs of him on a yacht emerged around the same time Real were playing Espanyol.<\/p>\n
“In his free time, Mbappe can do whatever he wants, like any other player,” head coach Alvaro Arbeloa said.<\/p>\n
However, the discontent has led to organised fan action.<\/p>\n
An online petition calling for ‘Mbappe out’ has spread rapidly across social media, encouraging fans to demand change and to act regarding the player’s future at the club.<\/p>\n
It aimed to collect 200,000 signatures. More than 12 million people have signed it in less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n
While there is no way to know how many of those who have clicked on the online petition are actually Real Madrid fans, the backlash has arrived at a sensitive time.<\/p>\n
Real are on the verge of ending the season without silverware, trailing Barcelona in La Liga by 11 points and ousted from the Champions League at the quarter-final stage.<\/p>\n
In that context, scrutiny on star players has intensified, and Mbappe, despite being Real’s top goal-scorer this season, is now the subject of major criticism.<\/p>\n
As well as questions around his commitment, there are also claims of dressing-room tension and frustration bubbling beneath the surface.<\/p>\n
Mbappe’s representatives released a statement to media this week saying any criticism “does not reflect the reality of Kylian’s commitment and daily work for the team”.<\/p>\n
So what happens next?<\/p>\n
In the short term, attention is on whether Mbappe will be fit to feature at the Nou Camp.<\/p>\n
“We’ll see how Mbappe is this week,” Arbeloa said in his post-match news conference on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“After last week’s tests, it looked as though it might take a bit longer.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mbappe is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury sustained in late April against Real Betis, making him a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-941771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116528276325665524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}