There are a lot of Real Madrid fans who want to see Kylian Mbappe punished after he made disparaging remarks about Alvaro Arbeloa and his teammates, disrespecting the club and taking the attention away from young striker Gonzalo Garcia, who was the Man of the Match before Mbappe came into the outing against Real Oviedo, which Los Blancos won 2-0.
Mbappe was incensed that Arbeloa benched him in the Pichichi race with Vedat Muriqi of Mallorca, letting a Freudian slip that maybe he wasn't so injured before Barcelona and didn't need the manager to ease him back.
Because of the insubordination, which Jose Mourinho apparently isn't taking too kindly to given his relationship with Arbeloa, Madridistas were hoping to see Arbeloa continue to put his foot down and not start Mbappe this Sunday against traditional La Liga rivals Sevilla.
Alvaro Arbeloa is not a petty man
But per reporting from MARCA, via the Madrid Zone, Kylian Mbappe is set to start against Sevilla, and other Spanish outlets have the Frenchman in their expected XIs, making it clear that Alvaro Arbeloa isn't going to punish Mbappe or bench him.
Despite the blood lust of some fans, it makes perfect sense for Arbeloa and Real Madrid to do this, and it's doubtful that this is some edict from a meddling Florentino Perez. Arbeloa never benched Mbappe. He was playing him off the bench because Mbappe was coming off an injury and missed several games, including telling his coach he had an aggravation just before El Clasico.
Maybe he wasn't actually injured and was avoiding the Clasico because he wanted to start from the XI, but that isn't Arbeloa's prerogative, and he isn't going to sit there and speculate like a fan. He is told information, he acts on the information, and Mbappe didn't play.
But Mbappe was there against Oviedo, didn't suffer any aggravations, he hasn't had issues in training, he had an assist against the last opponent, and therefore he is ready to start. Arbeloa knows that Mbappe is in his main XI, and he isn't going to be petty or unprofessional and bench Mbappe to teach him a lesson. That's not his job right now to teach lessons, because Jose Mourinho will do all that with a clean slate.
Arbeloa's job is to keep things smoothed over in the locker room, try and get Mbappe to give something more all around before the season ends, and set Mourinho up with the least volatile situation possible. That means playing Mbappe, and if this wasn't a question of punishment, there would be no questions about Mbappe playing. End of. Arbeloa isn't here with an agenda, and that should make even the Madrid fans who don't like him (which is silly, he is a true Madridista) respect him more.
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