Real Madrid, Mbappe, and the shots.

I have been watching the games for quite some time, and with a simply eye one may say "Mbappe is the problem, he cannot do anything." And whilst I do agree that he cannot do anything, I personally do not believe it is completely his fault.

Vini is a player who likes to run across the line, dribbling into the box from the corner, whilst Mbappe prefers to cut in and shoot. The problem in this however is that there is no striker.

Mbappe did have one or two times that he managed to get past his man, however there are about 50 defenders Infront of him. This would not be a problem if there was a true 9 that was dragging the defenders away – and if they had not been marking the 9, then he gets the ball and scores.

A simple eye will say "Mbappe is at fault.", and whilst Mbappe definitely has not been as good as he used to be, he is playing in extremely crowded areas with essentially no space due to the lack of a true number nine like Benzema who dragged players and punished by scoring if they did not follow him.

Bellingham used to play this role, acting as a false 9 who would score goals and drag defenders away, and if they did not follow him – he would score. However, Bellingham does not play as a false 9 anymore, which has led to congestion and lack of width in the attack of Real Madrid. Everytime Real Madrid attacks, the attack is only focused on one side completely.

Liverpool today were capable of delivering threats from the left and right, using counters to demolish the midfield and backline – and most importantly, they had a 9 which Rudiger/Asencio had to follow, which did not allow for a 3v1 on counters against Salah or Diaz.

Real Madrid desperately needs a pure 9, a target man, who will create space and punish mistakes.