For years, he put himself at the service of the team and gave up his prime year so that the collective worked.

We berated him.  We made fun of him.  He still put up respectable stats even in a support role.  Had his inconsistencies...  but name one player not named Ronaldo who hasn't had ups and downs in the last 10 years.

CR leaves and he's asked to be one of the players carrying the scoring load.  Took him about 2 months to adjust... and out of everyone who was asked to carry the extra load, he's the only one that's delivered while still remaining a generous player.

The reasons for our poor year?  Plenty of them.  But none of them have to do with Benzema.  He's the brightest spot so far.

Still an idiot and does maddening things.  Has done and continues to do some very stupid things off the pitch... but on the pitch, you can't deny his effectiveness.  Even with CR, he filled his role almost perfectly.

Kudos to him.  I didn't think he could do it.

Easy to shine when there is 0 pressure. Madrid are playing for the Dignity Trophy atm ffs.

I'm happy that he's performing well this season, and he scored some important and decisive Champions League goals in past seasons as well, no one can take that away from him, but let's not pretend that he hasn't been largely underwhelming and unproductive for extended periods of time before this season started. Even CR had his ups and downs, but I for one, never doubted his general consistency. In Benzema's case, the amount of mediocrity he's shown over longer periods of time during Zidane's first tenure is simply baffling. Even you ran out of excuses for him, at some point. A lot of the criticism he received was fully justified, in my opinion. One can obviously argue that we won the Champions League multiple times with him on the team, and he showed great awareness to score and assist some of the more decisive goals leading up to those trophies - he certainly deserves credit for those contributions and for his CL legacy in general, but his productivity throughout the course of a full season has been largely disappointing more often than I would like to admit.

Lack of sustained clinicality aside, his link-up and ability to out-muscle and use close-control to drive the ball forward can sometimes be completely world class, but even that's been brutally poor for extended periods of time during the post- Benitez era. Putting himself at the service of the team is noble and all, but even that hasn't always worked out for him. People berated him because, despite his level of talent and the quality of the team he's played for, he's gone through periods of performances that were so ineffective that even neutral watchers were scratching their heads and wondering how he was managing to nail down a starting spot. In retrospect, I'd say it's most likely that his consistent decisiveness in the Champions League (ignoring lack of general productivity) was what sealed the deal in terms of not replacing him.

Yeah he's been a bright spot in a team full of under performing players. Well done to him.

His best season was probably 11/12 and even then he displayed his flawed abilities as a goal scorer and attacking threat, which are still there. Hope he leaves soon so we can stop talking about him for good. He won't be remembered by Madridistas as a legend, he played his part, to a very good/excellent degree at times. Considering he earns millions to kick balls, it was about time he stopped sucking them.

hahahaha

lmfao proving everyone wrong when the season is over, save it. this is like lebron getting triple doubles against chicago when lakers are already out of the play offs.

i needed this production earlier on. that said, the whole team wet the bed this season, to push that on benzema alone isn't right. my fear after getting knocked out of all 3 comps was that we would let games against juggernauts like huesca, eibar, celta influence our plans.

i believe as i said before that with zidane we will stock on midfielders/wingers, and sign some cf just to sit on the bench

jibers wrote:Easy to shine when there is 0 pressure. Madrid are playing for the Dignity Trophy atm ffs.

...and this .

“Respectable stats in his support role?” The guy had worse stats than Casemiro last season.

Not EVERYONE

For years, he put himself at the service of the team and gave up his prime year so that the collective worked.

Uhhhh, this is not true. Not entirely anyway. Alan Smith gave up being a striker to be a midfielder. Dwight Yorke gave up being a striker to be a midfielder. Benzema is still a CF who gave up nothing. He chose to the role of "support striker" as it was the easier path instead of being an alpha. Suarez is very much still an alpha and has been just as supportive for both club and country.

Benzema is having a decent season but we good shat the bed so it kinda means diddly squat tbh.

Seems to be a very inconsistent season for him though. There have been patches where he contributed very little, followed by periods of high output. Good for him for 'owning' the role, but I don't think he's been reliable enough for Madrid to no longer consider bringing in a 9.

I completely disagree with all of you. NO elite CF would have deferred to CR the way Benzema did... we would have had major drama and would never have won as many titles.

Could you imagine the ego of Lewandowski and Suarez doing OK with the hissy fits CR threw anytime you didn't pass the ball to him and took the shot yourself? Heck, there was drama with Higuain and he's a relatively low maintenance player.

And his stats at Madrid are UNDOUBTEDLY elite both this season and during his entire career at Madrid. Not to say he didn't have awful seasons... but let's look at them.

This season: 26 goals and 10 assists all comps. Nuf said.

In now his 10 seasons at Madrid, he's scored 218 goals and dished 123 assists. That's an average of 22 goals and 12 assists per season.... FOR 10 YEARS!

And I haven't been a fan of his for years... as soon as the Valbuena incident went down. I think he's a stupid POS.

Yet I can't help but admire how he's adapted and survived at Madrid. You can say it's Flo... but really, every single manager has raved about him.

madrid's easily swayed, that's the theory i've come up with. we had glaring problems, solari's team won like 2 or 3 straight games against hapless opponents and flo went out to announce a deal till 2021. even on here some began saying solari had done enough to stay

we've been beating some hapless teams after experiencing possibly our worst season ever, and now benzema is all of a sudden the guy we should hinge our future upon?

very very unlikely, but if bale grabs hattricks against leganes getafe vallecano et al are we going to all of a sudden do the "gareth bale is back" routine? if we go into next season, with no other cf option (which i believe we will, i maintain we'll sign some bench type forward) its suicide.

You fools are lost. but this is of no surprise. much like bale, not like I expected more from y'all.

Do not bother sportsczy. Though I'm surprised you appreciate what the Benz has done for us this season. the failings of this season is not his fault at all. or at the very least, you cannot fault the only guy who gives a shit about the shirt and team he plays for. 25+ goals in all comps is respectful. especially considering how clear it is for all to see how badly in shape this team is.

well it matters not what you lot think. Benz is a bonafide madrid legend. and his legend ain't ending anytime soon.

Too bad.

jibers wrote:Easy to shine when there is 0 pressure. Madrid are playing for the Dignity Trophy atm ffs.

Is it though? Bale and many other starting players don't seem to have gotten the memo.

You never hinge your future on Benzema... that's not his role. You bring an alpha and he has the uncanny ability to complement him.

For example, can you imagine Hazard / Mbappe / Benzema? He'd be the perfect fit. This may happen btw.

Good on him for having a fine season, but the bigger picture is that Madrid need rebuilding and Benzema is 31.

farfan wrote:

jibers wrote:Easy to shine when there is 0 pressure. Madrid are playing for the Dignity Trophy atm ffs.

Is it though? Bale and many other starting players don't seem to have gotten the memo.

That says more about them than it does any sort of praise aimed at Benzema tbh.

32 other threads weren't enough

I don't really get this thread. The guy had almost a goal a game in the league just a few years ago in the 15/16 season so how is him scoring a few goals this season a big surprise?

sportsczy wrote:You never hinge your future on Benzema... that's not his role. You bring an alpha and he has the uncanny ability to complement him.

For example, can you imagine Hazard / Mbappe / Benzema? He'd be the perfect fit. This may happen btw.

Who's the alpha here?

leaked, wow this gon be fire

He went missing when it mattered the most.

Where was he against Ajax?

Where was he against Barcelona?

Where was he in all those games which were crucial to us?


I mean. Suarez can do fuck all in all these meaningless games but just because of his clutch performances when it mattered he is light years ahead of Benzema. We need elite players like Suarez to compete with elite attacks.