La Liga Betting: Real's away days costing them dear

Spanish Football / Ben Lyttleton / 18 January 2010 / Leave a Comment

Gonzalo Higuain missed Real's trip to Atletic Bilbao through injury and was sorely missed

"It's going forward where coach Manuel Pellegrini needs to find improvements:
Kaka has been struggling with injury and admits he is still coming to terms
with his new position behind the front-two, which explains why he has not
been at his best."

Ben Lyttleton wonders why a Real Madrid star-studded line-up including the likes of Karim Benzema, Raul, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Gonzalo Higuain can't seem to score enough goals, particularly away from home. A problem Barcelona don't seem to have....

Real Madrid were top of the table nine days ago, but only for two hours. That was all the time that Barcelona needed to leapfrog them in impressive style, beating Tenerife 5-0 just after Madrid's 2-0 win over Real Mallorca. This weekend, the fixtures came in similar order and Madrid could have reclaimed their top spot with a win at Atheltic Bilbao, while Barcelona faced a tricky home encounter with Sevilla. Only it didn't quite work out like that.

This morning, Barcelona are five points clear at the top, fully justifying their status as ([1.48]) favourites to win La Liga. Real Madrid, ([3.35]), are back in second, licking their wounds after a 1-0 defeat at Athletic that coincided with all three of their big-name summer signings ­ Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema, starting a game together for the first time since Round 3 back in September, when the team beat rock-bottom Xerex 5-0.

This game was Benzema's big chance to assert himself in the team, given that he had only started one of their last nine games and in-form striker Gonzalo Higuain, with 11 goals in ten league games and five in his last, is out for three weeks. When Benzema struggled early in his Madrid career, he complained to the French press that he was playing out of position and certain players (like Raul) weren't passing to him. More recently, he has accepted his position in the pecking-order ­ "I know I am a reserve at the
moment," he said ­ and shown a willingness to fight for his place.

He did hit the post against Athletic, though the Spanish papers were quick to point out that Benzema's six goals this season have come at an average of every 221 minutes, while Higuain¹s ratio is a goal every 103 minutes. "Is Benzema the solution?" asked AS on Monday morning. "This is the dilemma for Pellegrini to answer."

Higuain himself pinpointed the problems with this Real Madrid team after their last away game, a disappointing goalless draw at Osasuna. "We lack that killer instinct to kill a game off," said the Argentine, after missing a hatful of chances to put the game to bed. Even last week against Mallorca, the two-goal win could easily have been five or six: and the difference in that cutting edge up-front was emphasised by Barcelona, who could have been two or three goals behind before smashing Tenerife 5-0; and then on Saturday, they beat Sevilla 4-0 - so much for that tough test.

Real Madrid had 29 shots against Athletic, of which 19 were from outside the area, and 10 came from Cristiano Ronaldo. And they still didn't score. It's not the cutting-edge provided by Higuain that is the missing link: when he plays, the team scores an average 2.3 goals per game, and without him it's 2.2. The problem is that away from home, Madrid are goal-shy: they have scored 30 goals in nine league matches at the Bernabeu, but on the road they have only scored 12 in nine (compare to Barcelona: 25 in 9 at home, 20 in 9 away).

When this season started, the early signs were that it would once again be Madrid's defence that would let them down. The full-backs were all over the place, Iker Casillas was not the convincing figure he has been in previous years, and the sense was that the team would just try and score more than their opponents (3-2 v Depor in Round 1, 5-2 v Zurich in Europe, 4-2 v Valladolid, Round 7, 3-2 v Atletico, Round 10). But although the team has been without injured centre-back Pepe, the Albiol-Garay partnership has been working well recently. Athletic's winner from Fernando Llorente was Madrid's first goal conceded in four games.

It's going forward where coach Manuel Pellegrini needs to find improvements: Kaka has been struggling with injury and admits he is still coming to terms with his new position behind the front-two, which explains why he has not been at his best. Benzema now needs to repay the faith shown in him by president Florentino Perez, who has described him as "a world-class player of the future".

It's the present that concerns Madridistas right now though: they cannot afford to drop any further behind Barcelona and if Benzema does not start scoring soon, he may go the way of Nicolas Anelka, the last young French star who struggled to settle in Madrid's far-from-friendly dressing-room atmosphere and left after a year. On a positive note: Anelka's not doing too badly for himself now.