Thierry Henry: 'PSG have lost their magic without Kylian Mbappe'

Tom Weber

Updated: 23 Oct 2024 15:45 BST
3 min read

Luis Enrique, Kylian Mbappe, PSG — © IMAGO

France legend Thierry Henry has admitted that he is worried about PSG amid their poor form.

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The Ligue 1 champions started the post-Kylian Mbappe era on fire. Comfortable wins over Le Havre, Montpellier, Lille, Brest and Girona, as well as the scintillating form of young stars Bradley Barcola and Joao Neves, made everyone at PSG quickly forget about the Real Madrid megastar.

More recently, however, the Parisians have stumbled. Luis Enrique's men have only won two of their previous six matches across all competitions. The Spaniard recently insisted that he has seen a lot of potential in recent performances, but there is no getting around the fact that the early-season hype has given way to a tense atmosphere.

On October 1, PSG were thoroughly outplayed by Arsenal in the Champions League and on Tuesday, they again failed to perform in Europe, only mustering a 1-1 draw with PSV. Though they had their chances late in the game, the end result was yet again a sobering one.

'PSG have lost a bit of magic'

France legend Thierry Henry believes that the recent slump is due to Kylian Mbappe's departure, insisting during his punditry duty for CBS that PSG have 'lost a bit of magic.'

“You’ve lost a bit of magic, even though the team seems a little bit more solid in terms of balance. Obviously, it isn’t good enough,” the Arsenal legend said.

“They have decided to go towards youth but when you go towards youth, you can’t go full young too early. You need to have a couple of guys that can be around [them].”

Earlier in the season, after the Arsenal game, he already drew attention to the fact that the Kylian Mbappe hole is a gaping one. “They don’t have that match-winner that they had in the past.

"Yes, the team is more well-balanced, you can see there is an idea when they approach the other team but in and around the box, apart from Bradley Barcola, who was trying to do something, we didn’t see much.”