Spanish coach Alvaro Arbeloa has responded strongly to recent claims involving Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 after the French star was left on the bench before entering in the second half.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the match, Arbeloa dismissed reports that he had called Mbapp\u00e9 the \u201cfourth striker\u201d in his squad. The coach insisted his comments had been misunderstood and made it clear that team selection remains entirely his decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never told Mbapp\u00e9 he\u2019s the fourth striker, he misunderstood maybe,\u201d Arbeloa said. \u201cBut I decide for my team and the best thing was now Mbapp\u00e9 on the bench entering in the second half tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement quickly grabbed attention across football circles as questions continue to grow around Mbapp\u00e9\u2019s role and relationship with the coaching staff. Despite the growing noise, Arbeloa showed no signs of backing down from his stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as I\u2019m in this chair, I am the one who decides who plays and who doesn\u2019t,\u201d he added. \u201cI do not care what their names are. If they like it, fine, and if not, they can wait for the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments underline Arbeloa\u2019s strong managerial approach and his desire to keep authority inside the dressing room, regardless of a player\u2019s reputation or status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spanish coach Alvaro Arbeloa has responded strongly to recent claims involving Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 after the French star was left on\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":51221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4651],"tags":[4517,2327,4522,449,3919,2109,1804,5503,266,5504],"class_list":["post-52022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-liga","tag-alvaro-arbeloa","tag-florentino-perez","tag-interim-role","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-la-liga","tag-madrid","tag-mbappe","tag-oviedo","tag-real-madrid","tag-real-madrid-manager"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52023,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52022\/revisions\/52023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}