ZINEDINE ZIDANE has jumped in to support his No. 9 Karim Benzema slamming ex-England striker Gary Lineker for his criticism.
The French manager says Lineker's comments were "embarrassing" coming from someone within the sport. Lineker lead the charge on social media ripping the 29-year-old after he had three agonisingly near misses in Real Madrid's 1-1 draw against Tottenham.
That included a close range header saved by Hugo Lloris that will go down as one of the most incredible saves in Spurs history.
The BT Sport and BBC pundit wrote on Twitter: "Is it me or is Benzema a tad overrated? A goal every other game in a team as strong as Real Madrid is nada especial. Decent not great."
Real Madrid fans and Spanish media were quick to defend one of their own, as was Los Blancos boss. According to Dermot Corrigan Zidane told media ahead of Sunday's clash with Eibar: "I get annoyed about Karim. For people who know about football to say this is embarrassing, but for me he is the best of them all, by a long way."
The Frenchmen hit back on Lineker's criticism of Benzema's goal production saying he doesn't need to be a scoring machine.
He continued: "People think a No.9 here needs to score 50, 60 goals. Karim will not score 60, but he will score 25, 30 and set up 30 or 40.
"So I get annoyed when people talk about my players, although we cannot avoid it." Zidane's support of Benzema may also be aimed at putting a stop to rumours of a move for Spurs' Harry Kane.
The reigning La Liga champions have had a rocky start to the new campaign and the English striker has been linked to a move to the Bernabeu.
Injuries have hampered Real Madrid with 12 of Zidane's 24 senior players already missing at least one game this season.
Although the setbacks have been frustrating for Zidane he said all his players should be fit soon so they can make a push to challenge Barcelona and Valencia who sit above them.
From The Sun
No comments:
Post a Comment