as much as we deride Benzema, at least he still stays fit and shows up in the biggest games a la atletico Madrid in champions league last season and supercup..but bale, he is just pure useless mass of flesh. sell him and take hazard or something. just anyone.

In other news,they say barca got mahrez. which I think Is bad for them (good for us) because it would mean messi moving to midfield to accommodate mahrez on the right , thereby leaving them with 4 attackers and an empty midfield for opponents to drive through..

I'm with the majority here that wish both Benz and Bale had been sold. However I'm trying to understand the rationale for this summer's activity.

A couple of comments first. Both Flo and Zidane have had a couple of objectives in their moves for the past 2 or 3 years.
- adding stability to a winning lineup that has been together for at least 5 years now.
- improve club depth by recruiting (or promoting) young talent esp. Spanish to come in to not only backup, but challenge and grow into starter roles.
- changed the model of academy to eliminate one team (only the best remain after 18) and to loan out rather than promote to continue development.

and my other main comment is that Zidane is clearly in charge and in sync with Flo (despite what Sports claims).

So of the changes,
1. they caught rid of baggage or disappointing performers in Coentrao, James and Danilo. (from a Zidane's point of view (and no I don't agree with this), Bale and Benz were not disappointing performers.

2. They filled the two empty spots on roster at LB and DM.

3. They let an aging player run out his contract and replaced him with a promising younger.

4. They let go of Morata, who wasn't happy playing behind Benz for an exceptional high price.

5. They promoted two academy players to fill vacancies.

6. They bought the best 20 year old CM in Spain.

7. A lot of this has to do with the emergence of Both Isco and Asensio. Essentially it should mean a front line of Asensio, Ronaldo and Isco with the Ceballos purchase allowing 6 natural CMs, and allowing Isco to be full time part of front line. That then means that Bale and Benz should see a lot more of bench this year. As backups they do have experience going for them!

8. All of Vallejo, Llorente, Theo, Ceballos are highly rated and have potential to grow into starters eventually. If not, they are backups and can fiarly easily be replaced in future.

9. It remains to be seen if the promotion of Arhraf is satisfactory or not.

10. I can't explain the promotion of Majoral at all. There simply is no rationale than I can think of, other than he was very very promising a year ago.

So in conclusion, I can understand most of this, but we are left with

1. Why is Zidane so insistent with Benz and Bale.

2. Why not extend Pepe another year (or two) and let Vallejo continue developing elsewhere.

3. On a positive side, he is the best coach for all these youngsters to ease their progression.

4. I sure hope they play regularly with Asensio and Isco in lineup.

shadexticos wrote:as much as we deride Benzema, at least he still stays fit and shows up in the biggest games a la atletico Madrid in champions league last season and supercup..but bale, he is just pure useless mass of flesh. sell him and take hazard or something. just anyone.

Unless you're referring to another Benzema, I'm afraid I'll have to disagree.

Regarding his physicality, need I remind you that he has a horrendous injury track record at Real Madrid with him getting injured every full moon? At one point he even showed up injured after the euro, which he didn't even participate in and spent the whole summer resting on his couch. You'd have to be a special kind of injury-prone to get injured while laying down on your couch.

Regarding the claim that he shows up in big games, please remind me, aside from that 2-sec dribble he did against Atlético what did he do last season? He was invisible and a waste of skin in pretty much every single big game we had. So when you say that he shows up in big games, naturally I can't help but get confused and baffled by such an unsound and terribly flawed claim.

Benzema reached a new low last season, and it's lower than rock bottom. The kind of low that can't be excused nor sympathized with.

I agree with you about Bale, but my point is that Benzema is not any better than the Welshman. They both have no business being at Madrid.

AS reporting that we're preparing a huge bid for Timo Werner

I didn't read the actual article but from the comments it sounded like next summer would be the earliest we would consider Werner. A lot can change in a season. He's a great prospect though.

Isco has officially re-signed
€700m release clause

According to Duncan Castles there is interest from us in signing Alexis in december, a move i would gladly welcome, regardless of his age

I'll welcome it now actually. Like all now.

To get him on a free next summer or pay to get him in winter? He could be pretty valuable considering he wouldn't be cup tied.

I just have a feeling Arsenal have already come to terms that he will be going for free in summer and they will refuse all deals.

vanDEEZ wrote:To get him on a free next summer or pay to get him in winter? He could be pretty valuable considering he wouldn't be cup tied.

I just have a feeling Arsenal have already come to terms that he will be going for free in summer and they will refuse all deals.

if they know he will be going in the summer, why wouldn't they sell him in January.

At least they will get something for him.

Seems stupid not to do that then again, its Arsenal.

Trust me, I agree with you. I just don't think Arsenal see it that way. They have already refused a 60m offer, so I find it hard to believe they would accept any offer below that just 6 months later- and with 6 months remaining there is no way we (or any team) offer that kind of money.

I think in Wenger's mind, Sanchez is more valuable to them, even as a hostage, than 60m. Again, I think that's pretty mad, but that's all the evidence we have.

Also, I do no think Wenger wanted to sell to another PL rival (again) as it was City who was making the bids. Who knows, maybe Madrid might have an actual chance in acquiring his services. Would be substantially a lot better than Benzema and Bale.

I saw that as well, if this was 2-3 seasons ago I'd probably be into it, however Lewa would be more of the same of what we have currently. Not a big enough change from Benz to spend big money.

the biggest problem with signing Lewandowski is that he will turn 30 in august next summer.

If we were to sell CR next summer, ok it's a transitional move till we find a bigger talent ala Ruud

If not, then it's pointless since CR is the CF already.

With CR around we need wide forwards who score goals. without him we need a CF and wide forwards still.

it's a peculiar situation because everything we do is tied to CR's decision to stay or to go

You "just read" that in your mouthpiece AS lmao

No one wants him anyway Hans, relax. Well, no one here I suppose.

Hapless_Hans wrote:You "just read" that in your mouthpiece AS lmao

rummenigge confessing that we are his dream club is about as good as it gets tbh, but as Doc said, non one is singing kumbaya here

many years too late. the time he should have been talking to us was after that game he scored 4. i was praying we sell both higuain and benzema to sign either lewa or suarez. but that was 5 years ago. in football, a year is a very long time, let alone 5. for me that ship sailed immediately he joined bayern

lmao you've been trying to sign Lewandowski for 4 seasons now without success

But it's he who is 'obsessed', apparently

Who said he was obsessed?

Doc wrote:Who said he was obsessed?

AS

we tried to sign him once, saying we tried for 4 seasons is a stretch. he went to bayern, we got ancelotti and zidane as his assistant. with zidane in the building, a move for lewa would never be in the works, considering his benzema affection. the next year zidane leaves to work with castilla, (We should have gone for suarez at this point); we didn't go for lewa nor suarez, we didn't even bid, we went for james

the next year rafa comes in, once again, we didn't bid for lewa, we didn't make an offer, de gea was on our sights and then the fax machine debacle happened. zidane comes in mid-season, and with him on board, benzema's role is guaranteed so no lewa. so i'm not sure where u've got 4 seasons from. the only person who's brought up lewa and madrid is his agent and now rummenigae

you don't miss out on a player to a team like bayern, or any heavyweight and think its a stop gap, a move wasn't realistic once he joined bayern and we never made a bid or approach, regardless of what AS says. according to AS, we've bid for every striker from falcao to kun to hulk to lewa to suarez to cavani.....even though flo doesn't even like AS

Hans talking out of his ass again, no need to dignify him with a long post

I don't know how many times we've gone "after him"... but there's little doubt we've been continuously interested since his Dortmund days when he scored 4 against us.

He's great. I'd love him here.