40 goals aren't enough to speak in his favour? Henry responds to Mbappé's critics

Kylian Mbappe has scored 40 goals this season, yet the criticism keeps coming over his supposed effect on the balance of his teams. Thierry Henry sees it differently. For him, the problem isn't the French star at all, but how he's used within the system.

Speaking on the "Rothen s'enflamme" programme on "RMC" radio, Henry defended the France captain and insisted that winning with Mbappe is perfectly possible. The job of finding the right combination, he argued, rests with the coach.

Henry said: "You can play well with Mbappe, but it depends on the coach to find the optimal setup for the team. This will be Zidane's task, exactly as it was Didier Deschamps' task, and as it was the task of all the coaches who worked with him at Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco."

He added, in remarks reported by the French website " Foot Mercato ": "You have to find the right balance, and that task is difficult whether Mbappe is there or not. Mbappe is not really the problem."

Pointing to other cases in football, Henry explained that the absence of certain influential players can throw up different tactical challenges of its own. That, he said, makes the coach's role fundamental in building balance within the team.

The timing is pointed. Mbappe faces ongoing debate over the extent of his individual impact on collective performance, and a new phase now looms under Zinedine Zidane.