who put the gun on mourinhos head saying benzema must start? or better yet, crystiana must start? why on earth is benzema starting over higuain? this is madness. is it zidanes influence to help his fellow bald algerian? dont get me wrong i love zidane but i hope hes not using his influence. benzema has demonstrated time after time that he is inferior when it comes to finishing against big teams or in important games. i know he has been scoring lately, but he plays on real madrid who have 50 goals for and 13 against in la liga and are even more dominant in the CL, so any average striker would score at least as much as benzema, given his playing time. under pellegrini when madrid was dominating the league in similar fashion, higuain scored 27 in 32, and for the first 6/7 games he was subbed in for benzema. yet benzema has 8 in 13 so far. ironically, higuain has 12 in 15, with less minutes overall.

again, dont get me wrong, i like benzema. he does in a way remind me of zidane and ronaldo with his elegant play (except when he is in the box and has to finish). he is a master of possession and is a very clever player. but these traits are not good enough to give him starting role for center forward. every time he is on the left he plays his best, so he should play as left wing forward instead of crystiana (that is another topic itself).

what has higuain got to do to start? this kid started from the bench, started not in his natural position, and still couldnt stop scoring and assisting, and scored season winning/saving goals year after year. he worked his way up, perez forced him back onto the bench but he impressed so much again when he got 20 mins a game coming in for benzema, that perez shut up and let pellegrini start him. he realized looking like a fool for buying benzema when we could have got our own negredo was more worth than putting higuain on bench and dropping points. i know higuain is not perfect as he sometimes is quiet in big CL matches, but no player is perfect, and he will overcome that too. its not like benzema will be scoring in those matches either, so i dont see the argument here. even the stats agree with me; higuain has 4 more goals in liga while playing way less minutes. i think mourinho is too scared to leave crystiana on the bench, because he wants the assurance of having a free kick go in, so he leaves on a player for 90 mins in hopes of scoring a free kick, even if it means not getting the most throughout 90 mins of football by choosing a better starting 11. this means for center forward he chooses benzema who is a better midfielder type than higuain, while sacrificing goalscoring. this may work in la liga games against average/weak opposition, but in big games we cant score. at least he should rotate the offense, since we have so much talent. however, the gaurantee of crystiana playing 90 mins a game is ruining everything, as i predicted before el classico and as we factually saw this unfold.

Dude Benzema is our best attacker atm.

lol this kid, benz is our best attacker.

Benz was faultless against Farca. IMO he is the main man right now.

Mamad wrote:Dude Benzema is our best attacker atm.

SuperMAG wrote:lol this kid, benz is our best attacker.

i already distinguished between attacker and goal scorer. we have enough attackers. we have ozil, di maria, kaka, crystiana. we need a goal scorer in order to not lose games. very strange that you 2 did not watch el classico and call yourself madrid fans? lol.

Seppuku wrote:Benz was faultless against Farca. IMO he is the main man right now.

higuain will always be a better goalscorer, and that is what we need. we lost because we couldnt convert chances against barca. if higuain was on he would have a better chance of converting.

2010/2011 la liga stats according to fox sports:

higuain: goals: 12; minutes played: 709
mins/goal: 59

benzema: goals: 8; minutes played: 728
mins/goal: 91

I watched last Clasico like 5 times lol.

It is Cristiano who should be benched not Benzema

Mamad wrote:I watched last Clasico like 5 times lol.

It is Cristiano who should be benched not Benzema

indeed:

raulmadrid4vr wrote:again, dont get me wrong, i like benzema. he does in a way remind me of zidane and ronaldo with his elegant play (except when he is in the box and has to finish). he is a master of possession and is a very clever player. but these traits are not good enough to give him starting role for center forward. every time he is on the left he plays his best, so he should play as left wing forward instead of crystiana (that is another topic itself).

i think the best thing is to rotate higuain/benzema/crystiana.

Overall.......somwhere hidden in the wall of words that is your post....is a point.

Benzema is rotated and he started against Barca because he is our best and most complete attacker....that much is obvious.

Who put's the gun to his head to make Ronaldo start? - Us.

The collective Real Madrid fanbase,those who want to see this CR7 vs LM10 rivalry continue, it's about marketing, nothing else.

He should get rotated, but he isn't , because getting rotated would kill all the comparisons with Messi, because it would be concrete proof that unlike Messi at Barcelona, he is integral but not essential to our success.

ragbirjosh wrote:Overall.......somwhere hidden in the wall of words that is your post....is a point.

Benzema is rotated and he started against Barca because he is our best and most complete attacker....that much is obvious.

Who put's the gun to his head to make Ronaldo start? - Us.

The collective Real Madrid fanbase,those who want to see this CR7 vs LM10 rivalry continue, it's about marketing, nothing else.

He should get rotated, but he isn't , because getting rotated would kill all the comparisons with Messi, because it would be concrete proof that unlike Messi at Barcelona, he is integral but not essential to our success.

speak for yourself and florentino perez. i always opposed crystiana coming to madrid, and wanted robben and sneidjer to stay, just like pellegrini. but perez had to ruin it again. sneidjer and robben went to CL final and world cup final while we ended up with nothing. also, stop confusing 'attacker' with 'scorer.' every team needs a scorer. benzema is not our best scorer.

So you want to drop our best attacker to play our best scorer........there's no point in that.It's a trade off and we're not coming out any better if we do it.

ragbirjosh wrote:So you want to drop our best attacker to play our best scorer........there's no point in that.It's a trade off and we're not coming out any better if we do it.

it cost us el classico which could cost us the league. it could also cost us the CL. if you think that trade off is not worth it then i dunno what to tell you.