i'm not disputing he was at fault for all 3 goals, but that is three mistakes in 180 minutes of futbol. What I am saying is there was at least 170 minutes of good futbol by him and therefore I challenge the statement he was awful for 5 games.

please let's not make danilo a martyr. its one thing if he was here and playing well, but to just go off the bat with the "we should have kept danilo" rhetoric, really? we were all slagging this dude for making draxler look like nedved, and he didn't improve much the following season

i'm not cool with the martyrdom morata's getting either, but that's cos i never considered him a long term option, i thought we were selling to buy (but apparently not). however, unlike danilo, morata actually built his stock so i can at least understand the "martyrdom" he's getting even though its only september

but come off it with the danilo should have stayed. we definitely should have gone for a back up, nothing too fancy at rb, but lets not make mr. danilo a martyr, we got 30 mill for him (same amount we purchased), but he played like his football was worth less than ten grand, and i'm not exaggerating. if he succeeds at city, great for him

To be honest I'm not so much worried about Bale. As far as I'm concerned that position is for Asensio or Isco. The issue is a CF. I think Ronaldo plays best with another CF.

Werner is the latest to be linked, but we should be shortlisting the likes of Dybala, Griezmann, Jesus, and to a lesser extent the likes of Dolberg, Kane or Sanabria. For me any of those would be an improvement over Benz who has 3 goals in 4 months of play all competitions. If not to lead the line, we at least need someone who's an improvement over Mayoral.

Why is no one ever linked with Icardi? He's been quality for years.

Icardi is a trouble maker and has a huge ego. don't want him anywhere near this team

Yeah, he has quite a bit of emotional baggage. Excellent footballer though...

I think we should go for either Belotti or Werner, both are already playing at a very high level and have great potential.

vanDEEZ wrote:To be honest I'm not so much worried about Bale. As far as I'm concerned that position is for Asensio or Isco. The issue is a CF. I think Ronaldo plays best with another CF.

Werner is the latest to be linked, but we should be shortlisting the likes of Dybala, Griezmann, Jesus, and to a lesser extent the likes of Dolberg, Kane or Sanabria. For me any of those would be an improvement over Benz who has 3 goals in 4 months of play all competitions. If not to lead the line, we at least need someone who's an improvement over Mayoral.

Why is no one ever linked with Icardi? He's been quality for years.

He became their captain at 22, has signed several renewals and expressed his desire to stay at Inter many times.

I've been coming around more and more to the idea of Timo Werner. He has been a top prospect for years, and made a decent breakthrough last season.

Maybe one of his biggest assets is that I feel like a January move could be possible, where as with any of the bigger names I would bet my arm we would have to wait until summer.  Also, I think Timo would be similar in the way Mbappe could have functioned in that he can also play LW and RW covering for all 3 front line positions, and we wouldn't necessarily HAVE to sell one/two of the BB. (I know that would be a bonus for many posters here but logistically it's work to have a big departure like that in January). Timo being cup-tied in Europe could work in our favor- the BBC (and with all of their faults I still include BB in this) tend to show up in Europe even if they are in poor form domestically. Timo with his pace and work ethic seems like a striker made for La Liga, so he could take some pressure off of BB there.

Bring in Timo, loan out Mayoral (to RB Leipzig maybe), have a much better alternate striker who could also cover the other 2 forward positions, which would facilitate the departure of one of the BB in the coming summer. There is really no downside- he's obviously better than Mayoral, but if he can't cut it we can still bring in someone next summer.

Quite a bit of rambling on my part but that is who I throw my hat in the ring for.

Sounds good Deez, also logical and rational.

In the interim, I would give Mayoral some action (to see what he can do or not) and if he can offer some goals when BB can't.

But most important of all, play Asensio and Isco a lot.

A sale to us from Leipzig would be a great succes for their business model, especially for a 100m+ move.

They're built around buying young players and offering them a chance to improve. If they can sell a player for a huge sum to Real Madrid or Barcelona of all places, and they succeed, most young players would love to play for them.

Actually a lot like Ajax's model.

Anyone wanna email Madrid Deez's idea? Looking at you Bill...

I'm weary of offensive numbers in leagues such as Bundi, Portuguese and Dutch. I mean a guy like Modeste is scoring for fun there. He's a good player, but really not one that should be doing what he's doing.

Some caution here.

Sports we are talking of an interim improvement here, as Deez said the likelihood of replacing both (or either) of BB in January is slim to none. What we are talking about is replacing Mayoral. Hell the way Benz is playing anyone at this stage would be an improvement. (I agree with Deez that the solution re Bale is Asensio / Isco plus it's only a matter of time until he's out with yet another injury. We won't be dealing with the actual problem until next summer. At this stage, it's much more about getting thru this season.

Just to carry your logic further, we should also be weary of offensive numbers from Lique as well!!

@Doc, I can forward the suggestion to Flo, but the real decision lies with Zidane not Flo and thus we are back to no resolution to BB until Zidane recognizes what all of us are saying.

Benzema just signed a new contract til 2021 supposedly..

Always loved rewarding people for bad performances. Great move.

When I read that, it felt like how Wenger keeps getting new contracts.

you have to avoid when your talent leaves the club on a free transfer if you feel you can get money out of the move. the reason why talents (like cristiano) have not left the club at their peak for free, is cos of contract extensions. its why cristiano, for all his i am sad/i want to go to england, talk, he hasn't found it easy to just break away, cos there's a lengthy contract in place. so we need a bid we are happy with, in order to sell

granted, benzema isn't at his peak (that was at lyon, no joke), but the club still considers him a valuable asset. too valuable to leave a window of opportunity open for him to go on a free or less than their market value. i see nothing wrong with this. people have signed contracts and still been sold. all i want is competition in that position. contract extension is no big deal

He wasn't necessarily at risk though, his previous contract was until 2019, so we technically had another year. Overall you are right, in the grand scheme of things he very well may be sold this summer and this new contract won't make a difference, but it does send a mixed signal to sign a player on a new contract right in the middle of a huge slump, and an injury.

i don't know if its a mixed message, don't know details of the deal, but these things depend largely on what the player and their representatives ask for. if they don't ask for too much a deal could be easier to reach regardless. i get the concerns, but he's 30, deal till 2021 when he'll be 34, he's not cristiano so i doubt he'll be starting at that age

another thing to consider, regarding mixed messages. he's our only cf (mayoral ofcourse but that's another topic), and he's injured, whether one likes him or not, chances are we're going the whole year with him as the only cf, what we can hope for is that this at least gives him confidence not to put out the kind of material he did last season, or the material he put out the second half of the season prior. i think the club has done a hell of a lot for him

He also recently said, "when you are a starter at Madrid, the world's biggest and best club, why would you want to go elsewhere".

He feels absolutely no pressure with his game and openly displays it. This "problem" starts and ends with Zidane!!

It's Zidane's fault that Madrid didn't want to spend the money on Mbappe.... right.

That was the plan:  To have Mbappe compete against the front 3 and take someone's job.  Asensio and Mbappe were supposed to be the heirs. Two issues came up: 1) Mbappe wanted others to compete against him for the job and not vice versa and 2) the outdated salary table that I don't quite understand given what Bale's wage was coming in.

I don't know, Tito's reasonable responses is annoying my obvious disdain for rewarding Benzema with a new contract.

futbol_bill wrote:He also recently said, "when you are a starter at Madrid, the world's biggest and best club, why would you want to go elsewhere".

He feels absolutely no pressure with his game and openly displays it. This "problem" starts and ends with Zidane!!

what do you want him to say? "if madrid doesn't give me a new deal by thursday i'll start answering arsene wenger's calls"? he said the most political correct thing he could say, for a player who's blown hot and cold. he praised the club and confirmed his happiness here. i don't put much stock in the comments.

i also doubt he openly displays feeling no pressure. the madrid crowd has always put pressure on him. i think this is just his game, i think this is the best he can give. i mean he's 30, if u're expecting him to start doing stuff from back in lyon day in and day out, you are mistaken.

sometimes its not that a player wants to suck or play bad, its just the way they are when they've peaked. my concern is management should recognize that and promote competition. people say sell benzema and sign someone else. but then that someone else will also be the only cf and no adequate competition......and i don't want that. i wanted it years ago though, when i wanted both benzema and higuain sold, but that's cos the other good cf's i wanted as replacements at the time where also in their mid 20s

lol at doc's comment, that cracked me up.

I wanted Mbappe too but those demands are quite, what's the word, ambitious for someone of his age and stature in world football. Bale, for all his flaws which I, us, Freeza have talked about ad nauseam, could have demanded a high salary from his time with Tottenham and being a legit star in the world's most watched league (EPL). I totally get Madrid's position when it came to that. Their salary model being outdated is something I cannot speak about as I am not that savvy when it comes to the financial world.

I can read a balance sheet though...

Morata is getting 170K euros a week.  Lukaku is getting 225K euros a week.

Mbappe's wage is....  183K euros a week (the net part was bs; it's gross).

Which one would you rather have?

Mbappe saw the wages that other strikers were getting in the window and wanted his wage to be in line.  It's Madrid's fault that they waited for those comparables to happen.  And it's also 100% reasonable for Mbappe to ask the same as those other, and frankly lesser, players.