There have been a lot of highs for Real Madrid this season. They’re top of the league, winning games. They’re in the round-of-16 of the Champions League, and the quarter-finals of the Copa Del Rey. Vinicius Jr has turned into a superstar, and most of their players in general are doing well.
I say most because there is a group of players that just aren’t doing what’s expected of them. They hold the team back from reaching its full potential, and believe me, it’s high. All of them are largely in the same positions.
These players are the wingers. Most of Real Madrid’s wingers – and when I say most, I mean all except Vinicius Jr – have been either poor, or very inconsistent this season. And something must be done to change that.
Except for Vinicius Jr., Real Madrid’s wingers have simply not been good enough
You can talk about any winger you want. Let’s start off with the easiest one first. Lucas Vazquez, if you consider him a winger, you really shouldn’t. He’s become a right-back now, for better or for worse.
Gareth Bale started the season off well, but since then he… just hasn’t played? This man hasn’t featured for Real Madrid since late August. If he can somehow stay fit, then he might become the preferred starter for the rest of the season, but for now, I can’t really call him a player that has been having a good season simply because he’s not having a season at all.
Then you look at the three players that have featured the most for Real Madrid. Rodrygo Goes is a very, very talented player who just has only limited himself to showing flashes of brilliance. We’ve never seen what a consistent Rodrygo Goes looks like, because that version of him just doesn’t exist in the position he’s being asked to play at. And it’s not the club’s fault, or Rodrygo’s fault that he’s playing on the right because on the left you have probably the best winger in the world.
But, the thing is, even on the right Rodrygo has been better before. We’ve seen good strings of games from the Brazilian on that side, and it’s really unfortunate that it has to be this way with him, but if he’s serious enough about making it work at Real Madrid, he needs to get better and more consistent.
Looking at Eden Hazard, well, we’ve talked about him enough. He’s not good enough to make Vinicius sit on the bench anymore. And we get impressed with the little things he does because the standards have just fallen. We don’t treat Vinicius Jr like this, so why does Hazard get the special treatment? If he’s been bad, he’s been bad. And he has. No ifs and buts. Ancelotti thinks that he’s still part of the squad for next season, and I don’t know what to make of that…
Now, the final option, Marco Asensio. He’s a player that has perhaps been the best out of all these players, and it doesn’t seem hard to pull off. But, the thing is, Asensio hasn’t really been good either. Yes, he has scored seven goals this season, which is more than what he managed to do last season, but three of those goals came in one game. And he’s had poor performances as well, Asensio has just not been consistent enough when he starts on the right, and that’s not what you expect from a player that is supposedly good enough to be a Real Madrid starter.
Real Madrid need to do something about this if they want to compete on all fronts. They need to find a solution to this problem this season. We already know that Kylian Mbappe will solve this problem if he joins next season, but Los Blancos have this season to worry about as well. And if they really want to win it all, they need each and every one of these players to get better.