Too easy IMO to now shoot against Mourinho for benching Benzema...after all it seems people have forgotten allready how shit Benzema has been in the league so far whenever he started! The subs with Kaka' all saw Real play without a real striker and it worked just fine. Jarehead-Anelka was off the pitch and the gameplay improved for the remaining minutes. Baring those things in mind, benching Benzema was the logical thing to do sooner or later.
The game against Almeria was nothing but a fucked up day...Xabi Alonso, Di María, Özil, Khedira & Marcelo were all not up to their usual standards. Cristiano loses a lot of his game and danger when he has to play as lone forward, cause he cannot use his speed and dribbling down the wings. Nevertheless he tried a lot and was MOM in terms of effort for me. Kaka' is not yet there, but nevertheless played a few very nice passes. I'm definitly not a big fan of Mourinho, but can you seriously blame him with 5 players letting him down refering to their respectiv displays, 1 player just coming back from ages of injury and only Cristiano actually trying?!?!?! Can you seriously come to the conclusion: well, it's because he didn't play Benzema and period?!
IMO, in this situation, Mourinho could only do the wrong thing...starting Benzema would have been playing with only 10 men, like recently...again. He would have been blamed for that as well. If not against Almeria, than a bit later for not taking actions on Benzemas horrible performances.
A mistake because in the end Benzema was the one with the assist? Hell no!!! We all know, that Benzema is best coming from the bench and that those performances have absolutely NOTHING to do with the ones he shows when he's starting. Benzema did NOT make the diffrence!
What made the diffrence were the changes Mourinho made; the impacts of Granero and the tactical switch in bringing Carvalho for R. Albiol, thus playing Sergio Ramos more offensively - who from there on was moving forward like crazy, stayed in the opponets half and had several chances to score himself. That gave the game a lot more offensive creativity and power...Benzema on the other hand was nothing more than a flag in the wind.
The only thing i really do blame Mourinho for is to not trust in Morata. Seriously, timining never was better than now! Pérez & Valdano had a change in policy regarding the Castilla and madridistas are fed up with buying foreigners, calling for more spanish palyers and above all, more chances for Castilla. This is the perfect time to use them without taking the risk of deliver these kids on a silver tablett to the angry Bernabeu crowd when they don't perform instantly and thus burn them at age 17. That was a big problem in the past, but now the general tenor is more "humble": i rather watch Morata playing 4 minutes with heart and giving his all, than 60/70 minutes of Benzemas lame ass performances.
Again, perfect time to try them out without the slaughter of recent years!
I love how Pérez & Valdano go hardcore on the Castilla issue. After all, this is part of Real Madrid history - as Gio said. Mourinho should accept that his wining is not helping at all. It's not like they force him to replace 4 starters with 4 Castilla players! It only 1 ffs...changing 1 who does care for 1 that doesn't does not mean this team is doomed already!
But seriously, RM and Barca will both probably drop points this season.
This is pure gold.