Benzema: “I’ll be looking to have a better season than I did last time round”

Karim Benzema will be staying in Real Madrid this season and will be expected to score more goals now that Cristiano Ronaldo will not be in the Spanish capital leading the club. Benzema’s performances during the last campaign were poor although he salvaged it all when he got a double in the return leg of the Champions League Semifinals and scored Madrid’s opening goal in the Final against Liverpool.

“We have to keep winning silverware because the target here is always to win things as a team. On a personal level, I’ll be looking to have a better season than I did last time round and continue to etch my name into the club’s history books,” said Benzema to Realmadrid.com.

Los Blancos will not have coach Zinedine Zidane in charge of the team next year. Julen Lopetegui will have a tall task trying to replicate the success of the French manager, but Benzema appears to be satisfied with what he’s seen from Lopetegui thus far.

“We know that Lopetegui is a coach who likes his teams to have the ball and play a possession-based game. He also places great emphasis on working hard when we lose the ball and how we press after we’ve given possession away,” explained Benzema, who is completing the whole pre-season with the squad after missing the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Most fans wanted Benzema gone this summer. However, it looks like he will be starting for Madrid in the offensive line, so the numbers he put up for the team last season simply won’t cut it this time. He knows it and now it’s up to him to deliver and show that he still has scoring punch.