Real Madrid’s biggest issue is not Zidane. It’s the injuries!
By Ben Sundock
Real Madrid suffered embarrassing defeats to both Cadiz and Shakhtar Donetsk this week, and now they travel to Barcelona for El Clasico with an injury riddled squad. Uh oh.
I hope you all haven’t forgotten that Eden Hazard is a Real Madrid player. Yes, the man who took the number seven and was pegged as the next ‘Galactico’ in Spain has already doubled the number of games he has missed with injury in just over a season with Real Madrid than he did over several successful years with Chelsea.
Hazard hasn’t played since Real was ushered out of the Champions League by Manchester City in August and Los Blancos are struggling to find a reliable goalscorer.
Other than Vinicius Junior, no one has been able to shoulder the load and produce with regularity. It certainly doesn’t help having to constantly worry about Marcelo playing left-back and Ferland Mendy playing on his weak foot on the right.
Losing Hazard to an injury before competitive play began is one thing, but losing the stalwart who is Dani Carvajal plus his replacement Alvaro Odriozola has done manager Zinedine Zidane no favors early on in this strange 2020/2021 campaign.
So, while the results leading into this Clasico have been the worst since Zidane’s return to coaching, those fanatics on Twitter calling for the manager’s dismissal are delusional! Considering Hazard, Carvajal, Odriozola, and young Martin Odegaard are all on the mend – and Eder Militao was just cleared to make his season debut on Wednesday – I would say Real Madrid is doing just fine with what they have available.
Karim Benzema and Luka Jovic are not pouring in the goals like we would like – or creating chances with regularity – but the lack of new signings and an early bout of the ‘injury bug’ are hindering the team’s ability substantially.
In addition, it is important to keep in mind here that most of these first-team players have been playing internationally and there has been little to no down time for them.
Next. Sergio Ramos holds the key to a rebound in El Clasico. dark
All the Zizou haters can pipe down. If there is any coach in world football to figure things out and get the best out of his players, it is Zinedine Zidane. Every team and coach goes through a rough patch and sometimes that rough patch is impossible to control.
That is what we have here. Keep the faith and the results will come. Trust me.