Real Madrid Star Benzema Warns Mbappe: ‘They’re Going To Kill Him’

While appearing on El Chiringuito, Real Madrid legend Karim Benzema fired a warning to his successor Kylian Mbappe by saying "they're going to kill him" if the Frenchman goes "two or three games" without scoring.

After nobody inherited it last season following Benzema's departure to Saudi Arabia, Mbappe has taken the 2022 Ballon d'Or winner's number 9 shirt at the Bernabeu in addition to his role as a central striker.

Mbappe's return of eight goals across 14 games in all competitions isn't that bad, but things haven't exactly gone to plan thus far since his high-profile free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain.

After scooping the treble last term, head coach Carlo Ancelotti is struggling to find the best system for his men which includes Mbappe and makes up for the control in midfield lost by the Toni Kroos' shock retirement.

Mbappe was particularly off key in El Clasico, and caught offside eight times in a 0-4 win that allowed the Catalans to move six points clear - which have now become nine - at the top of the La Liga table.

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In Benzema's view, the "problem" for him is that Mbappe "is not a center forward".

"Every time he plays with France as a '9' it is not good, it is not his position," the 36-year-old added, while acknowledging that Mbappe is positioned as such because "on the left there is another player of his level", in a nod to his former teammate Vinicius Junior.

Signed from Lyon in the summer of 2009, Benzema knows what it's like to struggle in your first year in the Spanish capital, but doesn't see similarities between his and Mbappe's cases.

"My situation in the first year and Kylian's is different," he stressed. "I was 21 years old and he is 25 right now. He knows that there is a lot of pressure at Real Madrid."

According to Benzema, Mbappe will have to learn to live with that as "if you don't score a goal in two or three games, they're going to kill you."

"[You] must put that pressure on. Every game is new and we have to score goals. They have brought him for this and he has the level to achieve it".

Above all, Mbappe mustn't "give up". "At Real Madrid there is a lot of pressure, this is not PSG," he reiterated.

Back to the positional harmony between Vinicius and Mbappe, Benzema said that "you can't put Vini on the right or as a centre-forward" because "where he makes the difference is on the left".

"Let's see how Ancelotti does this ... [He's] not going to move Vinicius because he is the best in the world right now in this position. Mbappe has to get it into his head that he should be a '9' and forget about the left. He's been very good on this side, but now he has to be good somewhere else," Benzema insisted.