Trevor Sinclair has hit out at Jamie Carragher for claiming Paris Saint-Germain duo Kylian Mbappe and Neymar shouldn’t be playing in France.
Mbappe and Neymar were part of the PSG side who lost 1-0 to Bayern Munich on Tuesday night but moved into the semi-finals of the Champions League after progressing on away goals.
Mbappe has 33 goals and ten assists in all competitions this season for the French giants, while Neymar has 13 goals and five assists in far fewer matches.
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PSG are currently sitting second in the Ligue 1 table after romping to the title in each of the last three seasons – but Carragher thinks the Frenchman and Brazilian need to be playing in a better standard of league.
“I don’t think players of the quality of Mbappe and Neymar should be playing for PSG,” Carragher said on CBS Sports.
“They shouldn’t be playing in the French league. It is a poor league, an average league and it’s just about these Champions League nights basically. Playing week in, week out in the French league… players of that quality should not be playing in that league, it’s not good enough.
“The top players don’t play in France, they’re only there for money. Nobody can tell me the French league is a top league. Why do top players not play in the French league right now?”
However, former England international Sinclair couldn’t disagree more with Carragher’s point of view.
“I’m 100 per cent not having that,” Sinclair said on talkSPORT.
“When you look at Mbappe he’s won the Under-19 Euros with France, he’s the World Cup with France, he’s played for Monaco and he’s got a move to the biggest club in France and wants to win the Champions League with them.
“Who is Jamie Carragher to say he shouldn’t be playing in Ligue 1? Of course he should! And once he’s achieved that maybe he’ll go on and experience a different league – LaLiga, the Premier League, the Bundesliga… who knows.
“But I can’t agree with that [from Carragher]. You cannot deny the boy – he wants to do it in the capital of France.”
Sinclair added: “When he was at Monaco he had 53 games [before signing for PSG]. Barcelona and all the big clubs are not going to go to a player who has played 53 games at Monaco.
“That’s why he has gone to PSG – because they recognise their talent in their own country. It’s like a player going to Celtic or Rangers, then if they prove themselves in that country they might get a move down to the English Premier League.”
Fellow talkSPORT pundit and former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan responded to Sinclair, he said: “How did that work for Lionel Messi though? How did he launch his career in Argentina?
“Or did he just go and play for the biggest club, at the time, in world football where his standards and the standards of football were significantly higher. We know that Ligue 1 doesn’t have the same competitive tension as the bigger leagues.
“So what Jamie Carragher is saying, in fairness to Jamie, is that if we want to benchmark this guy and if he wants to benchmark himself against the best he needs to be doing it week it week out.
“Yes he is [doing it] when they’re playing in the Champions League, but how many games is that Trev? Thirteen a season? We’re talking about domestic football here.
“You’re looking upon facts by the fact he’s gone to PSG. If PSG didn’t have a big bag of money that could afford to pay him do you think he’d be at PSG?
“We’re talking about money. If PSG didn’t have this enormous amount of money then they wouldn’t be able to have him. All the best players haven’t gone to play for Saint-Etienne or the other French teams as a matter of course – they’ve gone to where the money is!”
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