Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti admitted his striker Kylian Mbappe was “not at his best” after missing a penalty that resulted in a 2-1 La Liga defeat to Athletic at San Mames on Wednesday Club contributed.

Alejandro Berenguer gave the hosts the lead in the 53rd minute and a quarter of an hour later Mbappe had a chance to equalize from the penalty spot, but failed.

Jude Bellingham did the honors by converting a rebound after Mbappe struck from distance, but Gorka Guruzeta taking advantage of a poor pass from Fede Valverde near his own penalty area meant the Basques were doing Barcelona a huge favor and enabled the Catalans to maintain a four-point lead at the summit.

After the game, a journalist at Ancelotti’s press conference reminded the Italian that Mbappe had only scored 10 goals in 20 games after joining on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain, and had also missed two penalties, despite not being “like 1% of them.” “Mbappe looks like”. what we had seen” in the French capital.

“It’s much more than 1%. He’s not at his best but you have to give him time to adapt. He scored 10 goals and is working on doing better,” Ancelotti said.

Asked how the Frenchman is doing after his recent loss of confidence, Ancelotti replied: “I haven’t spoken to him. It was a complicated, balanced, hard-fought game. When we equalized, we were able to remember to stay in control and punish small details for ourselves tonight.

“We missed the penalty… I don’t have to rate a player’s game because sometimes a penalty is taken and sometimes it is missed. Of course he is sad and disappointed, but we have to move on.”

Ancelotti also defended Valverde, saying that the Uruguayan, “like Kylian”, was “sad and disappointed”.

“He made a mistake, but you don’t have to beat him. Fede is a great player. Mistakes are made in football, like everyone else. We have to watch the next game.”

Overall, Ancelotti believed he had seen a game that was “balanced”.

“Athletic is a very dangerous team, we competed and fought against each other. I think the game was a draw. For me it was a draw, which is what the two teams did, but there is nothing to say about the fact that they won,” he said.

“I think we did well defensively in the first half, we could have done better with the ball. In the second half we were better in attack and had chances. But that’s nothing, we’re still fighting. We could have done it.” A worse result, but we’re here and let’s think about Saturday’s game in Girona. Vinicius usually took a lot of penalties and all three are good: Mbappe, Bellingham and Vinicius,” he concluded.