Mourinho puts squeeze on Higuaín and Benzema

Posted Monday, April 01, 2013 by Marca.com

The lack of goals is causing Mourinho a headache. Cristiano Ronaldo's goal yesterday avoided Real Madrid being beaten at Zaragoza’s La Romareda stadium, and the players the manager has in his sights are Higuaín and Benzema.

Against Zaragoza, Benzema did not play one single minute. “We aren’t scoring many goals, that’s a fact. Maybe one of the differences between now and this time last season is that we scored goals very easily. The only player who has lived up to the promise of last season has been Cristiano Ronaldo. And the team is well aware of this. But the goals will come. We are optimistic”, the manager said.

The figures say it all. So far in 2013, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 21 goals, whereas the sum total of all the other players is 24. And in the season as a whole, Higuaín (12) and Benzema (15) have notched up 27 between them.

After 29 league games last season, Real Madrid’s goal count was 95. This season, it is just 72. In Europe the story is not all that different: 18 goals this season compared with 24 last season.

Mourinho seems more preoccupied and worried than usual, waiting for some kind of reaction from his goal-scorers, hoping that some time soon they will start to play every game as if it were an important final to them. All the same, he does not want to lose heart. “But it is a fact that we are having some difficulties. Last season we got over 100 points and lots of goals because we had a much better scoring rate”, Mourinho said.

What is not known is which forward he is going to pick for the match against Galatasaray. Higuaín, even though he played the full 90 minutes against Zaragoza, seems to have the edge.