We study asymptotic behaviour of positive ground state solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation $$\begin{aligned} -\Delta u+u=u^{2^*-1}+\lambda u^{q-1} \quad \textrm{in}\, {\mathbb {R}}^N,\qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad \qquad {(P_\lambda )} \end{aligned}$$
-
Δ
u
+
u
=
u
2
∗
-
1
+
λ
u
q
-
1
in
R
N
,
(
P
λ
)
where $$N\ge 3$$
N
≥
3
is an integer, $$2^{*}=\frac{2N}{N-2}$$
2
∗
=
2
N
N
-
2
is the Sobolev critical exponent, $$2<q<2^*$$
2
<
q
<
2
∗
and $$\lambda >0$$
λ
>
0
is a parameter. It is known that as $$\lambda \rightarrow 0$$
λ
→
0
, after a rescaling the ground state solutions of $$(P_\lambda )$$
(
P
λ
)
converge to a particular solution of the critical Emden-Fowler equation $$-\Delta u=u^{2^*-1}$$
-
Δ
u
=
u
2
∗
-
1
. We establish a novel sharp asymptotic characterisation of such a rescaling, which depends in a non-trivial way on the space dimension $$N=3$$
N
=
3
, $$N=4$$
N
=
4
or $$N \ge 5$$
N
≥
5
. We also discuss a connection of these results with a mass constrained problem associated to $$(P_{\lambda })$$
(
P
λ
)
. Unlike previous work of this type, our method is based on the Nehari-Pohožaev manifold minimization, which allows to control the $$L^{2}$$
L
2
norm of the groundstates.