How You Like Me Now? - The Karim Benzema Thread

Are you arguing Benzema's 14 calendar year goals vs Kane's 56? The one scored more than Cristiano and Messi while the other scored less than Paulinho.

In which big matches did Benzema show up? And not to mention that putting the goals away vs "minnow teams" wins you the league. How many points did we lose against inferior opposition this year?

 

This is absolutely true, it does “help” in terms of winning the league, but, you also have to show up against the big teams too, especially against them, no two ways about it, and especially if you will cost tons of cash, you have to be as close to “consistently” good as you can get, no player is perfect but it would not be good if you are scoring 5 vs the lesser teams in the league and none vs the top 5, that does not help, the disparity would be too huge,

need more balance, personally I don’t care if the striker scored 20 vs the worse team as long as he can produce vs the best teams as well, i’ve seen many here lose their minds about Ronaldo “padding his stats” playing in dead rubbers and scoring tons against smaller teams, personally I am not sold on Harry Kane against stronger teams with smarter defenses for club or country, that’s just me.

 

I think I never seen a coach support a player this much when their form is this terrible.
In 99% of the cases a striker this bad would be watching games from the bench.
Before El clasico I was saying we dont really have anyone else who can do better but at this point I am actually in favor of Mayoral getting some first team action.

 

The fans can continue to whistle him and call him names and demonize him in the press but the real people culpable for this scenario is Zidane and Florentino.

Zidane is the man who continually plays him due to favouritism, called him "the best forward in the world" "he would defend him to the death" "he doesn't need to score goals, that is not demanded from him". His insistence with him has lead to the departure of morata and mariano as they realised despite playing and scoring more goals they would never displace the Frenchman. Zidane has also not been able to get the best out of him at all. He is regressing.

Florentino is the man who became complacent and did not feel the need to invest in the team in the striker department. Although this was clearly influenced by zidane's selection policy. He would have sold Benz if zidane dropped him like he did with james. Zidane has more power than people think.

Ultimately they are both to blame.

 

Well yeah fair point but I mean they are to blame specifically for the Benzema/Striker debacle which everyone is obsessed about. In all other departments Zidane and Flo have smashed it in 2016/2017 season. This season though something is very wrong.

 

tired of seeing this guy out there with no energy

rather see lucas out there at this point

 

No doubt zidane and Perez are to blame for the Benz situation and why he continue to play. On the other hand, you can't take away 3 CL in 4 years from Perez and zidane.
The real question is what these two will do now.
The first option is to bench him, start other players, bale, mayoral, Marco and change rotation (BTW, out of the scope of this thread, but CR have been as shit as benz) they rotate the bench position for all I care at this point.
The other option is to keep things as is and hope for the best. Ride this formation and players until end of year. This is also gets more complicated because bale is fit again and soon if all BBCs are fit, isco will loose the starting point.

I'm pretty confident both zidane and Perez will go for the latter.
Both won't back down for the claims they had on Benz ("best in the world"), plus for Perez, if things get really low, he can just fire zidane for not being bold enough to make decisions.

 

That way Pinto had a better career than a lot of world beaters.

 

The Benz situation is a lot like Raul's a couple years back. Striker stinks up the joint, automatically starts.

Benzema apologists: "But he links up the attack and is vital"

Raul apologists: "But he hustles and tracks back like no one".

 

difference being Raul was a legend and played like one on his prime, while Benzema never fully conviced anyone he should be our main Striker, therefore should be easier so bench him

 

Yeah I get that. But you got to admit, Raul got way too much leeway on thay one.

 

Really shouldn’t be a Raul situation though should it? The former was “Mr. Madrid” while Benzema is just another striker that has played for the club (albeit one that has been fortunate to enjoy plenty of success). He hardly commands the same respect or leeway Raul had.

 

Perfectly said.

Funny how even today people still make excuses for what we had to endure with Raul.

 

Whoa, interesting if true, so someone decided ( him or the coach) he should keep playing at Madrid with his body in that condition even though he was clearly past his best?, strange decisions.

 

This isn't an exception, it's the rule in every sport. I'd bet he had a major hand in not disclosing the severity of his injuries.

I know I didn't.

 

Well, apparently Benzema is out 2 to 3 weeks...
http://www.marca.com/en/football/real-madrid/2017/12/30/5a47da22e5fdea76678b45b6.html

 

Celebrations by Madridistas are heard worldwide

A little too late.

 

Marca posts Benzema injured for 3 weeks article, best voted comment under the article:

"It doesn't matter, Zidane will play him anyway"

 

The sad thing is that is about the closest way we could see him to being dropped.

Hope the Medical team fakes the reports to the end of the season.

 

Hopefully Bale is ready to play matches from the start after the break. Also I hope to see some lineups with Isco and Asensio starting together instead of one coming on as a sub for the other. Why not put more midfielders out there if Benz is out injured/plays like a mid anyways lately with his lack of goals and work in the box?

 

This is probably the first time , Madridistas are happy that a player got injured, that too their own.