Real Madrid’s shocking 2-1 defeat to Girona yesterday marked the fourth occasion in which Los Blancos have failed to capture all three points this season, a worrying trend that’s seen Barcelona open an eight-point gap on their fiercest rivals after only 10 matches. Real’s attack has been uncharacteristically blunt this campaign, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s return of only one goal in 540 minutes of action has garnered the most attention.
There are, of course, lies, damned lies and statistics. We are talking about the man deservedly awarded the 2017 Best FIFA Men’s Player award after a seventh-straight season of 40+ goals in all competitions. In three Champions League matches this year, Ronaldo has scored five goals — a brace against APOEL, a brace against Borussia Dortmund and the equalizer from the spot against Tottenham.
But the returns have been meager in league play. Ronaldo has started and played the entire 90 in six of Real’s 10 La Liga matches. He’s scored once and come under heavy criticism in Madrid’s loss to Real Betis back on September 20 (12 shots, two on target, zero goals) and in Sunday’s defeat to Girona (seven shots, three on target, zero goals).
Cristiano Ronaldo tussles with midfielder Pere Pons during Real Madrid's 2-1 loss to Girona yesterday.
Will he get into trouble for this? pic.twitter.com/WnBH1Njtxy— Gagasi FM Sports (@GagasiFMSports) October 30, 2017
Overall, Ronaldo’s efficiency isn’t poor just by his own lofty standards. It isn’t poor just with regards to the world’s elite. It’s really just the poorest in Europe — nobody has been more wasteful than Ronaldo.
Cristiano Ronaldo: Of all goalscorers in Europe's top 5 leagues this season, Ronaldo has the worst conversion rate (2.5%) pic.twitter.com/ZtLiJyYlZ9
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) October 29, 2017
Are Real Madrid in crisis? They remain third in La Liga — a point ahead of Atletico Madrid in fourth — but an eight-point gap in October is a historic divide.
GIR 2-1 RMA (FT) - Real Madrid has never been champions after being 8+ points below the top at any point of any La Liga season.
— MisterChip (English) (@MisterChiping) October 29, 2017
But this is a side that’s already won the UEFA Super Cup, the Spanish Super Cup, is a certainty for the Copa del Rey Round of 16 and looks to have safely navigated one of the more difficult Champions League groups at the expense of Dortmund.
They’re not in crisis, but the reality of league play is that in attack, they’re currently less effective than Barcelona, Valencia and Real Sociedad — they’ve scored as many as both Real Betis and Celta Vigo. And this goes back to a problem identified by manager Zinedine Zidane at the start of September:
“It’s true that when you look at the players you had, like [Alvaro] Morata and Mariano, and when you see that now you only have [Borja] Mayoral that you might think we lack a No. 9. That might be the case, but it wasn’t possible [to bring in another]. I would have liked Morata to stay, but he wanted to play more and to leave.”
It hasn’t helped matters that the two players most relied upon to help shoulder the responsibility — Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale — have been plagued by injury this season. Benzema missed six matches because of a hamstring injury between September 10 and October 9, and Bale has been sidelined since September 27 with a calf injury.
League goals this season:
Jamaal Lascelles + Ciaran Clark + Isaac Hayden = 4
Cristiano Ronaldo + Gareth Bale + Karim Benzema = 4— bet365 (@bet365) October 29, 2017
With Benzema back and Bale set to return any day (and Ronaldo really only going up from here), you’d expect Real to recover over the upcoming weeks. But it’s not as simple as that. The next three matches for Los Blancos over that period? Away to Tottenham in the Champions League, home to Las Palmas and then a trip to the Wanda to play Atletico Madrid.
Three wins out of three and nobody mentions any of this ever again. Anything less than that and the hot takes will flow.
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