Does Neymar want to leave PSG?
By Ayman, Sports Staff Writer
After PSG’s elimination from the Champion’s League, it is the perfect opportunity for Neymar to end his time at PSG to go back to Spain and play for Real Madrid. However, the French club have bulked Neymar with a 400 million euro price tag to repel other teams from bidding for him.
According to the Mundo Deportivo, Neymar regrets his move to PSG and has told Barcelona he wants to return to them in 2019. However, this move seems unlikely due to the 400 million euro price tag for Neymar as Barcelona seem reluctant to pay double the price of what they sold to PSG.
However, when Neymar’s contract expires he may as well sign for a top-class team such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea etc, unless PSG won the Champions League in the following seasons which is highly unlikely due to the vast amount of top quality players attracted to English, German and Spanish clubs as there are more world class players there rather than in France.
On the other hand, going back to Barcelona may not be his best decision as the fans there don’t want to welcome him back as his transfer to PSG to them was a ‘betrayal’, but a move to Real Madrid would be better as the fans would welcome him as a way to hit a huge blow to the Barcelona team mentally, as they are rival clubs, which would make the fans hate Neymar even more, but also it is good for Real Madrid as their star Ronaldo is in one of his final few stages in his career and Neymar would be considered as a good long term replacement for Ronaldo.
Finally, another reason Neymar may regret his PSG move is because of the constant in-fighting as PSG’s striker Cavani seems distant with Neymar as in the preceding year they had an argument in a game who should take a penalty, and then other players from PSG got involved causing anger between the team. Also, it is easy to notice that after observing a few PSG games, the attacking half of the team do not work together as they mainly do dribbles by themselves to score, for example Neymar attempts 7.6 dribbles a game compared to Nabil Fekir, the second best in Ligue 1 only attempting 3.7. In terms of completed dribbles, Neymar has completed 114 of 168, whilst Marseille’s Florin Thauvin has 71 completed dribbles from 94 attempted. Despite the fact that Neymar’s stats outline his superiority in Ligue 1, it is odd that he is so far clear of the rest of the league, could this potentially be a consequence of passing to teammates less, a possible reason for the confrontation occasionally occurring at PSG, potentially give Neymar a main reason to leave the French club.