Our striker

Has 1 goal in his last 17 games

Yesterday he passed the ball 15 times with 53% accuracy. Casillas, our goalkeeper passed the ball 16 times with 56% accuracy.

Unfortunately as things currently stand the only striker this team has is Ronaldo. At least he is the only guy who positions himself in dangerous areas atm.

They're counting friendlies, which is stupid. He also played injured for a month last season but played since Di Maria, Ronaldo and Bale couldn't (due to injuries too).

Anyhow, he always starts slow and then really picks it up to end up in the 25-30 goal range to go with 10+ assists. WC year will probably make it worse.

There are two issues:
- Bale is worse at 1 goal this season while Benz has 1 goal and 2 assists
- Not enough shots. He has 10 shots TOTAL in 6 official games this season. You're never going to find form like that.

I expect our guys that went to the WC elimination rounds, namely James, Benz and Kroos, to get a whole lot better in October and back to normal come November. This is preseason for them. Look at Bayern.... they look horrible right now. PSG too. Both those teams have a lot of WC players. Ronaldo is in the same boat since he was injured until the season started.

My biggest disappointment are Modric and Bale. They have no excuse. They got rest AND a normal preseason. They should carry us. I have no expectations on Ramos or Pepe defensively so their mistakes are just par with the course.

WC years peeps... always strange. Teams that have players who went into 2nd round always look like crap with very few exceptions. Always been like this.

sportsczy wrote:They're counting friendlies, which is stupid. He also played injured for a month last season but played since Di Maria, Ronaldo and Bale couldn't (due to injuries too).

Anyhow, he always starts slow and then really picks it up to end up in the 25-30 goal range to go with 10+ assists. WC year will probably make it worse.

There are two issues:
- Bale is worse at 1 goal this season while Benz has 1 goal and 2 assists
- Not enough shots. He has 10 shots TOTAL in 6 official games this season. You're never going to find form like that.

I expect our guys that went to the WC elimination rounds, namely James, Benz and Kroos, to get a whole lot better in October and back to normal come November. This is preseason for them. Look at Bayern.... they look horrible right now. PSG too. Both those teams have a lot of WC players. Ronaldo is in the same boat since he was injured until the season started.

My biggest disappointment are Modric and Bale. They have no excuse. They got rest AND a normal preseason. They should carry us. I have no expectations on Ramos or Pepe defensively so their mistakes are just par with the course.

WC years peeps... always strange. Teams that have players who went into 2nd round always look like crap with very few exceptions. Always been like this.

how dare u say sth bad about Modric ? he's been great

When we really got rolling last season, it was because the defense was rock solid and the midfield stable... those are the biggest problems (like the beginning of last year). The attack flows out of those since we're at our best on the counter attack (regardless of what anyone says). Since we have such a hard time recovering the ball right now AND transitioning fast... the counter attack opportunities have been very few.

I know Flo and Carlo want us to become more of a build up team. That's never going to work with players like CR7 and Bale imo. We should accept what we are and act accordingly.

the biggest problem is in the middle of the park....its not like benzema has been afforded millions of chances and wasting them. there isn't delivery from the midfield, there isn't a backbone, and this affects everyone. this time last year we could criticize benz cos chances were coming and he was messing up.....so far this season, his play may have been a problem but its not THE problem...the lack of balance, familiarity and trust is hurting everyone. if everyone was playing well and benz wasn't, then that's different; but nobody is playing well, singling him out is very hypocritical ....its not like james, kroos, luka, bale are setting the place on fire, they've been just as bad and all cost way more than benzema....i'm not big on benz either but let's do away with trying to make him the scapegoat, its ridiculous ( i left cron off the list cos he's just getting back to fitness)