Valkyrja wrote:

farfan wrote:He did play like crap i agree.

Tbh my post here was only a response to Adit's ridiculous claim that Benzema is the worst CF who started more than 5 seasons for Madrid.

That's not far from the truth, but that speaks for the quality of the previous Madrid strikers. Benzema is world class no doubt.

That's very far from the truth when Benzema is at the worst case equal to the last Madrid CF who played more than 5 seasons ( Higuain )  
He's also better than Morientes .

Farfan... let it go. The fact that Benz is a top 10 scorer in Real Madrid history despite not being the primary scorer doesn't sit well with some people. They just want to blindly hate him without any facts to support them whatsoever.

A good comparable in terms of role? Emilio Butragueno. He was the second striker behind Hugo Sanchez and he ended up with 123 goals in 341 games over 12 season at Real Madrid. Benzema has 108 goals in 210 games over almost 7 seasons. Way ahead of Butra's pace... they didn't keep track of assists back then but from what i remember the two were similar.

Madrid was always an all star team

Now Benzema is better than an all time great who had a winning generation named after him and a 3 times CL winner who played a major role in all 3 ?

The Demon of Carthage wrote:

farfan wrote:So anyone who believes Benzema is a good fit for Madrid and that his body of work at the club is great must be coming from a fanboy / tribal place ? as if there are not rational arguments as to why Benzema is indispensable for the team ?.

I think Benzema is one of the best CFs in the world. Maybe top3 even when he's in form. But against Barça, and aside from that great goal, he didn't do much. He made countless misplaced passes, missed a great opportunity, lost the ball on multiple occasions and during the first half he was utterly anonymous.

Hadn't he scored that goal, his performance would've been a disaster. If you think he played well, I really don't know what to tell you expect to re-watch the game one more time.

To be completely fair to him, he was pretty rusty. And not every player is gonna have a great game every time. You know when benzema's link up play and touch are off that it's just a matter of getting a rhythm. Think about it, those are his best two traits.

Benzema has dominated Barca several times.. Who cares about one poor performance ffs?

Valkyrja wrote:Now Benzema is better than an all time great who had a winning generation named after him and a 3 times CL winner who played a major role in all 3 ?

 
Being part of a winning team doesn't automatically make you better than a player who has less silverware .
He opened the score against Valencia in the 2000 final in a match that ended 3-0  , but other than that  i don't recall any otherworldly individual  feats that stole a victory for the team or anything you wouldn't expect from a  starter at Real Madrid .

What did he exatly do that Benzema hasn't done in the past 7 years  ? score less ? get benched by Owen ?
 take off those nostalgia goggles please.

Butragueno never won European Cup. Only won what is now called Europa league. Great league titles though.

Morientes? Depends. If you think Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima is better than Morientes then by default so is Benz.

In any case, Benzema is world class and as of right now he has no peers. Adit had the gall of saying Suarez is better than Benz but take a look at our most recent clasico on who really played like garbage. Benz had a bad game by his own standards but Suarez? Jesus christ what garbage. Looked like his liverpool days.

Benz scored an important goal on the otherhand. Benz has no peers. In terms of efficiency he is undisputed #1. The ratios are legit. I wouldnt want anyone else but him right now. Though his court related antics may change my mind. That valbuena stuff has yet to be resolved.

you know what's funny about bringing up morientes? he like benzema, (at least to me) was an enigma at real madrid. here's what i mean, i find it hard to understand the polar extremes benzema's presence at madrid creates. he's not a franchise or face to the point where his position should create tense debates always....morientes was the same; there were fans who loved him to extreme levels and a lot hated him as well, (because of his lack of technical ability) there was a writer who wrote that when morientes scored 5 against las palmas, the madrid fan beside the journalist kept reigning insults at morientes till he scored maybe the third or fourth...i really don't get the extreme hate/love they accrue. my perception on them changes depending on the performance

Morientes didn't have half the ability of Benzema though... or productivity. He only scored 20 or more goals for club twice in his career whereas Benz has done it in 8 of his 10 full pro seasons... not to mention Benz also has 87 assists in that span too.

Entirely different spectrum of player. Morientes reminds more of Morata.

true, (mori's best ability was in the air) and he could score when u didn't expect...i still don't get the extreme hate/love both players garner....but that's just me. the guy scored a goal yesterday in the biggest game of the second half of the season so far and its creating a ruckus. i'm not the biggest fan of his, but a striker's job is to score goals first and foremost, and he did that and we won the game. regardless of how he played, he scored, we won...i'm cool with that, than if all he did was attempt to link play up, with no attempt at goal and we lose. let's see how the season progresses, who's on the market, who we are firmly linked with (not jjust random rumors) and then we can have a proper debate.....for now, we won a clasico damn it....a much better moral booster than those 100 nil wins against poor malmo, getafe et al

Sell Benzema while we have Captain Blockhead and clearly visible declined Pepe still on the books?

I don't understand why there's talk on Benzema when there isn't any better CF in the market. Aubameyang and Lukaku? plz

Now he wasn't great against Barca but his goal brought us back in the game. IMO he continues to perform well despite criticism

Benzema's one of the best strikers in the world and he's as good as if not better than anyone we could possibly get. I don't really see a reason to sell him.

I mean I guess if we are to sell him it would be to try something different? A bit like the Ronaldo situation. Selling Ronaldo isn't about upgrading or downgrading anything, but more about trying a different approach. But yeh, altering the CF position shouldn't be a priority this summer. DM and CB is more important.

Benzema's one of the best strikers in the world and he's as good as if not better than anyone we could possibly get. I don't really see a reason to sell him.

I mean I guess if we are to sell him it would be to try something different? A bit like the Ronaldo situation. Selling Ronaldo isn't about upgrading or downgrading anything, but more about trying a different approach. But yeh, altering the CF position shouldn't be a priority this summer. DM and CB is more important.

I agree with tito. This constant pro or con against players is ridiculous. I'm not the biggest fan of Benz, but yesterday he got a fabulous goal that only one of the best strikers in the world would have got and it won the clasico for us. What else could we ask for?

You guys always want to run down individual players (while some of you unnecessarily want to build up others) and yet if you take a look at their performances elsewhere (either after they leave or with their NTs), it's obvious that all of the players are world class (even look at Denis who couldn't get any playing time here). If you want to find fault with the performances, look no further than Perez because the truth is we have the wrong mix of players either for attitude, motivation or balance, and he is responsible for that.

As to the op question, it really depends on what Perez intends to do this summer. If it is a wholesale restructuring, then Benz is one of the possible candidates to go, only because he and Ronaldo are the two main players that we have depended upon during the past 7 years with little to show for it. Is it fair if he does go, no, but that is the reality. I don't buy into the statements that there is noone better out there. But I do agree that any replacement will not be significant upgrade. I think the issue is much more with what they do or not about Ronaldo.

But as Tito said, let's see how rest of season pans out before we get into these endless (and useless) debates about who is better.

Benz is just now being more authorative in our games. Shooting when he can, dropping deep when the attack is too crowded. I would hate for us to sell him NOW after he has actually won me over but that would be such a Perez thing to do

It's kinda sad how most of you acknowledge Benzema now. You didn't when he was creating and connecting the attack and assisting a shitton while also scoring goals. Yet you do now when he scores a bit more and doesn't assist at all.

Well scoring is his job. Leave the assisting to Bale and walla you have two guys playing in amazing form. Who would have thought eh

Not back in the day... CR wanted to score 100 goals per season and pushed the CF out. The managers enabled CR too. So the CF needed to actually play more of a 10 to survive... And score opportunistically.

It frustrated me greatly the people expected the CF to magically turn in the scoring switch at will when CR struggled a few times when he never played such a role in all the other games. It doesn't happen like that.

Now that we are emphasizing the CF as a co-primary scorer as opposed to second fiddle... The criticism would.now be valid, not then.

Ronaldo is still the same as he has always been. Nothing has changed. But Benz is being in the box more nowadays and actually tries to score when he is in a good position

Also Bale is being less obsessive about goals so he assists Benz alot. Thats one argument where i would accept anyone telling me that Benz may have had a different role when Bale tried to be a hero.

But you cant deny Benzema's accuracy has improved this season compared to the previous ones which explains the amount of goals he scores now than before

Basically Bale and Benz are playong great because they are doing what they are supposed to. Bale more of a final passer and Benz more of a scorer. When roles were reversed they were both criticised.

Benzema has really improved his heading this season and that's good because both Bale's and Ronaldo's crossing ability is world-class. A few seasons ago Cristiano would have had nobody to cross to because both Pipita and Benz were bad headers of the ball. I still prefer Lewandowski over him, but our own Benz is world-class too.

farfan wrote:

Adit wrote:That is because of the talent centralization ,  CR became the leading all time scorer. Ozil having record assist in a season... Yeah no. Statistics are of little importance to me.

Didn't Higuain  benefit from the same supposed talent centralization ? how come Benzema is "by far worse" when the former managed a measly 2 KO stages goals in the CL in 7 seasons  and scored at a similar ratio in the league  ?  ( let me guess, stats don't matter . so you should be ok with your striker not scoring in the CL . )

Didn't Morientes benefit from talent centralization in his 7 sesaons at Madrid ?  Or maybe the likes of Raul , Redondo , Roberto Carlos, Seedorf ,  Makélélé ,  Figo , and Zidane are just no good enough   ? Look up the starting 11 for the 2002 Copa final and tell me if it's centralized enough for you .

By what metric is he the worst  CF that played 5+ years ?

I'm not a Higuain fanboy for your information. Yes, Higuain benefited too .. Everyone did... Because after around 2006 the talent centralization turned into different levels.

It's not that Madrid always had super teams.. It is about other teams all over the world could no longer hold on to their top players at prime... I can't believe as a Lyon fan you don't know it.

Lyon had juninho at his prime playing for them... No way it happens now. He would be playing in a super team now.

Seville had Reyes and Alves at their prime, Kanoute.  Villarreal had Juan Roman riquelmi... Can you belive that?
Betis with strong team..Super Deportivo with several great players... Real Zaragoza with Pablo Aimar, Valencia with David villa ,Ayala so many other world class players.. Atletico with Someone , Parma,Roma,Lazio,Fiorentina etc the talent was well distributed all over the world and more importantly  every teams were able to keep at least some of their top players at their prime... Now what a 18 year old can't even complete an year in a decent club that how much talent centralization is happening.

Barca, Madrid and Bayern have been in CL semi for how many years now?

Most of the normal teams now are weaker than they were before 2006.. All over the wiring world, except may be for EPL .

So yes, statistics are absolutely inflated now days and comparing different eras based on statistics is the biggest idiocy any one can do when comparing players.

Yeah Higuain benefited Except Benz produced just as much with Lyon both in Ligue 1 and CL before Madrid... and Higuain is producing just as much with Napoli.

Your argument holds absolutely zero water... nothing. None.

@Hala...  he's not the same.  CR can't come and fetch the ball as far back and make dribbles/runs with the ball to get his shot off.  He's been reduced to playing in or around the box.  Hence both his touches and shots have fallen off (thankfully).  

Still going to get around 300 shots for a season...  But not going to push 400 like he used to every season back in the day.  Those extra 100 shots go to the other forwards.  

It's also a positioning thing...  When Ronaldo carried the ball so much, there was no point making runs for a CF because you had a 2% of getting a pass from CR.  Now that midfielders and creative players carry the ball, the CF has a big incentive to get open because he has a high likelihood to get a pass.

How is it that much different back then? That's a huge goal discrepancy between morentes and benzema. Like, really damn big lol.


And benzema is way better with the ball at his feet then morentes. Morentes is a target man like Slimani.

Didnt I just explain why La Liga and normal teams in general were much better back  in the day?

Higuain would have scored more than anyone as well, his goal per minute was on track.

Only clueless people will compare football statistics in two different eras. I mean really? Why don't we declare Ozil better than zidane then.... The latter has much better assist numbers than Zidane. Also has better final ball than zidane ...I mean really big..lol....oh well.


Yeah you got the message.