Real Madrid: Cristiano Ronaldo needs more support in the attack
Cristiano Ronaldo is the name you’ll see when looking at the scoresheet for most Real Madrid matches this year. He is the team’s top scorer with 43 goals in all competitions, leading many to believe that Real Madrid’s attack needs more than just Ronaldo.
Ronaldo was able to turn around Real Madrid’s abysmal season alone at the turn of the new year. He scored 2+ goals in consecutive matches for the club in a span of 11 games. These statements become even more outlandish when you realize the Portuguese international will be 34 in under a year.
After Ronaldo, the next highest scorer, Gareth Bale, has 16 goals. The margin between the two is disappointing. When you take into the account the many seasons Bale has had at the club and his market price, he should be comfortably putting up 30 goals a season by now. Following Bale in the forward line is Benzema with only 10 goals.
When Ronaldo is on the pitch, the team has a different attitude and work rate. The attack has a target man to play the ball into the box. Players know where to cross the ball and have someone to play in for a chance on goal.
A perfect example of the team’s spineless attack is the recent clash against Barcelona. The attack in the first half had energy and direction when moving forward. There was a beautiful team goal with a combination of Kroos, Benzema, and Ronaldo. When Ronaldo left with an injury scare, everything changed.
Even though the team was playing a side with 10 men, it’s as if they weren’t. They were not able to capitalize on chances and utilize the extra man. The ball was just being moved from side to side with no focus point. There were players ignoring others in great situations in front of goal.
The example above is just one of many throughout the season. The team forgets how to score a goal unless it comes through Ronaldo.
The trend of Ronaldo being the only high scorer has persisted for the past couple of seasons as well. If we take a look at Real’s La Liga stats for 2016/2017 we see Ronaldo had 25 goals. The next highest scorers were Benzema with 11 and Isco with 10.
The season before that, we saw Ronaldo bag 35 goals. The next highest was 24 by Benzema and 19 by Bale. The scoring statistics clearly show that there isn’t any forward pushing with 30+ or even 25+ goals in the league.
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Possible suitors to help Ronaldo include names like Mauro Icardi, Harry Kane, Mo Salah, and even a possible Neymar move from PSG. Madrid haven’t jumped at anyone in the past couple transfer windows. There’s no opportunity better than now to make big moves.
Where the team goes from here is up to the players and management. We can no longer continue to rely on a 34-year-old to drag this team out of the gutter or lead them to finals. Every player needs to give their all and step up to the tasks assigned to them. This will allow the team to progress further and turn a new chapter in its history.