Neymar gives Mbappé little dig after striker dropped for lateness

This, coming from a man who threw a three-day birthday party.

Neymar Jr has come out in support of Thomas Tuchel's decision to drop Kylian Mbappé for Paris Saint-Germain's match against Marseille on Sunday night. Mbappé was benched after arriving late to a pre-match meeting, along with Adrien Rabiot, with Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting and Julian Draxler replacing them in the starting line-up. Neymar has endorsed Tuchel's decision to drop Mbappé, saying "he needs to respect the schedules".

"This is between them [Mbappé and Rabiot] and the coach. Yes, they have to respect the schedules, and they ended up failing in that part. They know, they are great players, important to our team, and we end up suffering because of it. But this is an inner thing. Then Kylian came in and ended up winning the game for us," he added.

Mbappé was introduced by Tuchel in the second half and made an instant impact, scoring just three minutes after coming on. Tuchel admitted it was a difficult decision to bench him. "I had to think hard. It is a disciplinary situation if a player arrives late for a meeting and is not punished," said the PSG coach. While lateness is a matter of unprofessionalism for the manager to resolve with his player, Neymar may want to remind himself of his glass house before throwing stones at Mbappé. Since his arrival at PSG, Neymar has missed several away matches in the league, flown home to visit his sister on many occasions and threw himself a three-day birthday party in Paris, which former PSG boss Unai Emery was made to attend.