Real Madrid's Karim Benzema: Gonzalo Higuain is a great player and we can play together

Posted Wednesday, October 19, 2011 by YAHOO Sport

Real Madrid attacker Karim Benzema has insisted that he can play together with Gonzalo Higuain for the Santiago Bernabeu side.

Both strikers have been in impressive form in the opening months of the 2011-12 campaign as they compete for a starting berth, but Benzema feels that head coach Jose Mourinho does not necessarily have to make a choice between the two because they can play alongside each other.

"He [Higuain] is a great striker and we can play together up front," Benzema said in an interview with AS. "There is absolutely no problem between us. We both want to help the club. It's normal that we have competition among the strikers at this club, we see this as something that gives all of us confidence. Higuain scored three goals for us twice in succession recently. We are both competing well at the moment."

Benzema, who replaced Higuain in the Madrid starting XI in Tuesday's Champions League Group D encounter at home against Olympique Lyonnais, then went on to discuss his side's 4-0 victory over his former team.

"We put Lyon under a lot of pressure tonight and put in a very good performance," he said. "We passed the ball around well. We had time to do that while scoring four times, and that's pretty good."

Madrid sits top of the table in Group D with nine points from three games. Ajax and Lyon are next and sit level on four points, while Dinamo Zagreb props up the section as it is still looking to register a point.