CBS Sports Pundit Breaks Down Why PSG Are Better Without Kylian Mbappé | OneFootball

After struggling early in the UEFA Champions League, Paris Saint-Germain have hit another level with wins over Manchester City, VfB Stuttgart, and Stade Brestois.

On Tuesday night, the capital club secured a 3-2 win in the first leg of the UEFA Champions League knockout play-off on Tuesday night at Stade de Roudourou, with Ousmane Dembélé scoring twice.

Nonetheless, with one foot in the Round of 16 with a potential clash with either FC Barcelona or Liverpool waiting in the wings, the question regarding this PSG squad being asked is whether they are better without Kylian Mbappé.

Are PSG better without Kylian Mbappé?

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Last summer, Mbappé left PSG as a free agent to join Real Madrid. Moreover, the challenge for the Parisians was replacing the Frenchman’s production, and so far, it’s been done by committee.

However, Dembélé is doing his best to carry that goal-scoring responsibility with 15 goals in 2025. Amid PSG’s current form in Ligue 1 and the Champions League, CBS Sports’ Mike Grella used Cristiano Ronaldo as an example to explain why the Parisians haven’t missed Mbappé.

“In a weird way, [Mbappé] has the [Cristiano] Ronaldo effect toward the end of his career… his time back at Manchester United, his time at Juventus, his time at some of these clubs where he’s such a big personality and such a big player that sometimes the team plays worse because of it,” Grella said.

“They feel like they have to get him the ball. They feel like the story is about him. They feel like they have to move him. He’s broadly similar to Mbappé because Mbappé is really a winger. He’s really in Barcola’s position or Dembélé’s position or Kvaratskhelia’s position. But they move him centrally, especially at Real Madrid as well.

“Really, he should play where Vini plays or where Rodrygo plays. But he plays centrally because it’s Mbappé, because he has to score goals, because he’s the big signing. There are times when even Real Madrid, you could argue, played better last season, were more dangerous last season, without Mbappé.

“I don’t know if you can just make the argument, I think you could say that they played better. So Mbappé is… I don’t want to take anything away from him, but there’s this Ronaldo effect where the team he plays in doesn’t play as well as when he’s out of the team.”

Recently, OptaJean highlighted that Dembélé has scored in each of his last eight matches across all competitions, matching the best streak ever for a PSG player—joining Neymar (twice), Carlos Bianchi, and Kylian Mbappé.