On Monday, Paris St-Germain will step up preparations for the start of League 1 without Kylian Mbappe.

During his contract standoff with PSG, Mbappe has expressed a desire to join Real Madrid.

A year-long extension to his contract, which expires next summer, has been refused by the club’s all-time leading goalscorer.

Therefore, PSG wants to sell the France forward now and secure a transfer fee rather than let him go for free.

Consequently, Mbappe was not included in PSG’s pre-season tour of Asia.

In response, he refused to meet with representatives of Al-Hilal, which made a world record offer to bring him to the Saudi Pro League.

It is understood that Mbappe will train with the loft group instead of the ‘A’ training group, which contains players who could feature for the first team. PSG begin their defence of the French title at home on Saturday against Lorient.

In their latest attempt to broker a solution to the situation, PSG offered Mbappe a guaranteed sale clause in his contract. There was a rejection of this offer.

The Paris Saint-Germain club are understood to be close to completing a deal for Benfica’s Goncalo Ramos after decades of underachieving at Champions League level with their ‘galactico’ model of signing superstar players.

Several top European clubs have expressed interest in the 22-year-old after he scored a hat-trick for Portugal at last year’s World Cup in Qatar.

It is expected that PSG will pay 80 million euros (£69m) for the forward.