Real Madrid don’t pack the punch they did during Carlo Ancelotti’s first stint at the Santiago Bernabeu according to Diario AS. The Italian will inherit a problem that Julen Lopetegui, Santiago Solari and Zinedine Zidane have all struggled with since Cristiano Ronaldo departed for Juventus; scoring goals.
Sergio Ramos, Madrid’s second-top scorer for these last two seasons after Karim Benzema, has also departed, further lessening their potency in the final third.
The obvious remedy is to bring in an elite marksman of the ilk of Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland or Robert Lewandowski, or even to bring Cristiano back. The alternative is to hope that Luka Jovic and Mariano Diaz can step up to the plate, although they registered three goals combined for Madrid last season.
Madrid averaged 2.66 goals per game during the Cristiano era; last season, it was just 1.69. Ancelotti’s wildcard could be Gareth Bale; the Welshman scored 16 goals for Tottenham Hotspur during his loan spell last season, averaging a goal every 104 minutes. If they don’t go to the market, they’ll need wide forwards like himself, Marco Asensio and Vinicius to do more.
