3 reasons for optimism after Real Madrid’s draw against Valencia

2. Benzema won’t be that bad again, and Ronaldo will be back soon.

It’s true that Karim Benzema had a howler of a match. One need look no further than a comparison between his xG and Marco Asensio’s to see just how bad of a game Benzema had.

Benzema underperformed his xG by 2.7 goals. In other words, Benzema made enough chances in quality areas to have scored nearly three goals. The shots were coming in for Benzema in dangerous positions, but he was simply not putting the ball in the back of the net.

Benzema often gets criticized for his finishing ability, or lack thereof. But today was an aberration. Benzema is not the best finisher in world football, but he’s far from a poor finisher. As Tommy K from Managing Madrid demonstrates, Benzema’s finishing skills are in line with many of the top strikers in  the world. He may not be as good at converting chances as say, Luis Suarez, or Robert Lewandowski, but he is nevertheless amongst the top strikers in the world in terms of his goal conversion from xG ratio.

In the context of the Valencia match, that means that Benzema’s string of calamitous misses were a statistical anomaly, even for Benzema’s standards. If, as demonstrated above, Benzema normally converts goals at a rate near his xG, for him to miss his xG mark by 2.7 is a total aberration.

Not only will Benzema not be that bad again, but he also won’t be required to do the finishing work by himself next time. Cristiano Ronaldo will be back soon enough, after serving his five match suspension for pushing a referee in the Spanish Super Cup. Benzema and Ronaldo always seem to play better together. It’s hard to imagine the 2-2 result going the same way if The Dark Invader were on the pitch.