Real Madrid should take advantage of Sergio Aguero situation

Reportedly unhappy at Manchester City, Real Madrid need to take advantage of Sergio Aguero’s situation and sign him.

It’s a weird ending to 2017 for Real Madrid. On one hand, the club has had their most successful ever year thanks to winning five trophies, essentially winning every single competition that they entered into aside from the Copa Del Rey and yet after an embarrassing 3-0 loss at home to fierce rivals Barcelona, they now find themselves fourteen points off the top. It’s an unexpected start for Madrid in the league, as at the start of the season many had expected the Champions League and La Liga champions to dominate the league with Barcelona struggling given how Barcelona had lost Neymar and brought in Tottenham Hotspur flop Paulinho from China.

Madrid’s problems do stem from the fact that they sold players like James Rodriguez and Alvaro Morata – two great options to bring on from the bench and the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo is not scoring the ridiculous amount of goals that he is known for. But an even bigger issue for Real Madrid is the continued decline of striker Karim Benzema.

Benzema’s form in 2017 has regressed greatly from what is normally expected of him and the Frenchman has only found himself scoring fourteen goals throughout the entire year. This is simply not good enough for a striker who is playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world and has resulted in Benzema coming under criticism.

More from Playing for 90

Madrid losing the league title might not be of much concern to Madrid; after all it’s a title they’ve hardly won in the last decade given the dominance of Barcelona. But Madrid will need to perform in the Champions League and it will not go easy for them as they will have to face Paris Saint-Germain in the round of sixteen. Even if they are to progress through, it will be hard for Madrid to win the Champions League for a third time in a row.

No matter what happens, Madrid will need to improve their squad for the next season in the summer – they’ve improved their youth options in the previous summer window to give them some excellent prospects for the future but they also need to improve on the present as well.

There will be strikers available in the summer, but there will likely be no better striker available on the market than Sergio Aguero. The Argentinean is reportedly unhappy at Manchester City, he’s no longer the main man at the club given the arrival of Gabriel Jesus and with it becoming likely that the club will also be signing Alexis Sanchez in the summer – there might be no need for Man City’s all time top goal scorer.

Very few, if any, would actually doubt the strikers’ skills. He hasn’t been featured less by City because he’s been surpassed by better players individually but rather because he does not fit Guardiola’s system.

There is very little Aguero can’t do, he’s a phenomenal striker and one of the best strikers in the history of the Premier League but he does have a tendency to be too selfish on the ball, which does not suit Guardiola’s system. He wants everybody to work as a collective, the system is bigger and greater than any player, this has been the case at both Barcelona and Bayern Munich with the only exception being made for Lionel Messi; and as good as Aguero is, he’s no Messi.

Which leaves the door open for a departure, if City do capture Alexis Sanchez in the summer on a free, they may have no problem selling Aguero and allowing him to leave the club. Aguero is a Manchester City legend as already mentioned, he’s the player who won City the league for the first time in forty four years in one of the most famous moments in the history of football – if they were going to make an exception for anybody to sell for less than what he probably should be worth, it’d be for him.

Zidane has placed an awful lot of trust and faith in Benzema; more than he should at this point in time. It should be admired at how selfless a player Benzema is and has been throughout his time at Madrid, he’s sacrificed himself as an even more lethal goalscorer than he could have been in his prime throughout his stay in the Spanish capital to accommodate Ronaldo. It’s why Madrid kept Benzema in 2013 and sold Higuain instead to Napoli.

More from Real Madrid

His ability at holding up the ball and linking up play has made him irreplaceable for Madrid for the past several seasons. It isn’t as if he was some slouch in front of goal either, Benzema has always been one of the best strikers on the planet, his goal scoring record despite not being the focal point of the teams attack has been remarkable and one can only wonder how he would have done in his career had he been the focal point of a team’s attack.

But Benzema’s form has regressed; at this point he is more of a hindrance to Madrid than he is a benefit. If Aguero becomes available in the summer, and it’s hard to see how his situation in Manchester changes, Madrid would be foolish to pass up on a player of his quality. Perhaps Aguero isn’t as selfless of a player as Benzema, but he is capable of creating quality chances to his team mates, unlike Morata which is why Morata and Ronaldo struggled to create a chemistry together.

Aguero at Madrid also creates an entirely different layer to Madrid’s attack – the cunning selfishness of Aguero could end up becoming a benefit. A combination of Aguero and Ronaldo could provide a deadly attacking duo. Aguero can still provide the link up play that Madrid need up front while also providing a more direct, more clinical threat that they also desperately need right now. A change of scenery could do Aguero all the good in the world, Zidane’s system is nowhere near as demanding, intense or as complex as Guardiola’s.