Benzema leaving Real Madrid

Mayor Goldie Wilson

Well-known member
Just been announced.

Its not surprising though, he's been miles away from the player he was last season.

Good timing all round I'd say. Kane to replace him?
 
It was my first thought as well.

One of the biggest clubs in the world in need of a centre forward, whilst one of the best centre forwards in the world is wanting a new club, and it helps that they're not a direct rival to Tottenham or in the same league.

I suspect the asking price will put them off though.
 
Firmino is linked too.

Not sure Kane fits their current model nowadays. They normally go big when players are either young or bang in their prime with a good few years left.

Kane is 30 next month and has 2 maybe 3 years tops at the highest level? Plus Levy won't let him go less than £100m.

Plus it's evident Kane wants Shearer's PL record. He's spoken about it on many occasions....then again, if Madrid come calling, you jump ship immediately.
 
Firmino is linked too.

Not sure Kane fits their current model nowadays. They normally go big when players are either young or bang in their prime with a good few years left.

Kane is 30 next month and has 2 maybe 3 years tops at the highest level? Plus Levy won't let him go less than £100m.

Plus it's evident Kane wants Shearer's PL record. He's spoken about it on many occasions....then again, if Madrid come calling, you jump ship immediately.
That is what I thought. His preference might be to stay here and break the Premier League record but how many chances do you get to play for a club like Real Madrid?
 
Firmino is linked too.

Not sure Kane fits their current model nowadays. They normally go big when players are either young or bang in their prime with a good few years left.

Kane is 30 next month and has 2 maybe 3 years tops at the highest level? Plus Levy won't let him go less than £100m.

Plus it's evident Kane wants Shearer's PL record. He's spoken about it on many occasions....then again, if Madrid come calling, you jump ship immediately.
but does he have the balls to play outside of England? Screw the record.
 
Firmino is linked too.

Not sure Kane fits their current model nowadays. They normally go big when players are either young or bang in their prime with a good few years left.

Kane is 30 next month and has 2 maybe 3 years tops at the highest level? Plus Levy won't let him go less than £100m.

Plus it's evident Kane wants Shearer's PL record. He's spoken about it on many occasions....then again, if Madrid come calling, you jump ship immediately.

Why only 2-3 years?

Benzema won the Ballon d'Or last year, a few months off 35.
Ibrahimovic was playing consistently at the top level until near his 40s.
Lewandowski is playing at the top level and is nearly 35.

Kane's game has never been based on pace.

The fee might put them off, but Kane's not going to be finished at 33 unless he gets some really bad injuries.
 
Why only 2-3 years?

Benzema won the Ballon d'Or last year, a few months off 35.
Ibrahimovic was playing consistently at the top level until near his 40s.
Lewandowski is playing at the top level and is nearly 35.

Kane's game has never been based on pace.

The fee might put them off, but Kane's not going to be finished at 33 unless he gets some really bad injuries.
You may well be correct, the last 3 seasons he's been injury free (pretty much), but before that he had a couple of sticky seasons picking up injuries.

He does seem to be very professional when it comes to football. He more often plays 90 minutes and rarely misses a game. So I certainly wouldn't say he'll be finished by 33.

I said 2-3 years at the highest level and I still stand by that as I think at 33 he may slow down and probably will, as does the large majority of footballers at the top end of the pitch do.

Ibrahimovic may be nearly 40, but he's not played a huge amount of football for over 4 years now. He's barely strings games together. He was also playing in the MLS when he was 36, hardly the top level.
And before that it was at Utd for a period of 2 seasons competing in EL mostly....not a very good Man Utd team (albeit they won the Europa League).

Benzema was 34 when his game fell - this season, especially in the CL he's been poor (compared to his high standards) - he barely got a kick against City in the semi's. No surprise Real are happy for them to part ways.

Lewandowski is 34 and still doing quite well to be honest, but struggled in some big games for Barcelona this season in the CL - most notably against Bayern (in which they ended up 3rd in their group!)

Real Madrid could definitely do a lot worse than Kane in all honestly.
 
but does he have the balls to play outside of England? Screw the record.
I'm not sure it needs balls, the premier league playing for Spurs is loads tougher than La Liga at Madrid in terms of quality of opposition. There'd be big pressure in the champions league of course
 
Firmino is linked too.

Not sure Kane fits their current model nowadays. They normally go big when players are either young or bang in their prime with a good few years left.

Kane is 30 next month and has 2 maybe 3 years tops at the highest level? Plus Levy won't let him go less than £100m.

Plus it's evident Kane wants Shearer's PL record. He's spoken about it on many occasions....then again, if Madrid come calling, you jump ship immediately.
Firminho can't replace Benzema, he would never score enough and I don't see where he would fit in for them either, they need a like for like. Firminho's also not good enough anymore, if they want to win La Liga or compete in the CL. He barely got a game for Liverpool, and they've not exactly been great this year, and they also off-loaded Mane (which should have upped bobby's game time).

Spurs might be up for selling Kane to Spain though, it's the only chance of them getting money for him, and him not playing for a club who are in direct competition (where he's guaranteed to do well). Selling him on the cheap abroad would probably be better for them than selling him for more, but local. Kane's still in his prime, but like you say, maybe only 2-3 years left of that. Could be a lot longer though, as he doesn't exactly rely on pace. He scored at a good rate, considering he was playing for Spurs, and probably would have matched Haaland at City (if Kane played for City), and there ain't many in the world who could do that.

They won't get £100m, he can talk to other clubs in January, they might be lucky to get 50-60m as most of the clubs will end up competing for him based on wages I expect. Will be hard for Spurs to turn down £50m, as it's like paying £50m for a striker for one year, it makes no sense.
Spurs fans would be livid if he left on a free and went to someone like Man Utd, at least if they get money for him it softens the blow.

Kane could possibly go abroad for a year or two and still come back and get the record, depends how long he thinks he can play for as he would still probably get 15 a year for an average team when he's 33-35.
 
Ibrahimovic may be nearly 40, but he's not played a huge amount of football for over 4 years now. He's barely strings games together. He was also playing in the MLS when he was 36, hardly the top level.
And before that it was at Utd for a period of 2 seasons competing in EL mostly....not a very good Man Utd team (albeit they won the Europa League).

Benzema was 34 when his game fell - this season, especially in the CL he's been poor (compared to his high standards) - he barely got a kick against City in the semi's. No surprise Real are happy for them to part ways.

Lewandowski is 34 and still doing quite well to be honest, but struggled in some big games for Barcelona this season in the CL - most notably against Bayern (in which they ended up 3rd in their group!)

Real Madrid could definitely do a lot worse than Kane in all honestly.

He's 41 now, but he was scoring virtually a goal a game at AC Milan in 2020/21 at the age of 39.
Picking up plenty of injuries whilst doing so, but that would still be 9 years on Kane's current age.
 
He's 41 now, but he was scoring virtually a goal a game at AC Milan in 2020/21 at the age of 39.
Picking up plenty of injuries whilst doing so, but that would still be 9 years on Kane's current age.
You're using Ibrahimovic as an example when there are very very few strikers around playing at a top club at the age of 39. And even then, you could argue AC Milan wasn't near the highest level 3 years ago.

Even Ronaldo who has had a much better and more impressive career than Zlatan isn't playing at a top club and he's 38....and you could argue he's been just as professional (if not better) with regards to his fitness etc.

Like I say, if Madrid sign Kane, it will be for the next 3 years, not for when he's 34 with very little residual value.
 
Kane will be able to play a while as he doesn't rely on pace, but injuries and probably overall fitness will likely get him by around 35, as he doesn't exactly seem to be in the same condition as Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo who went to 40. 40 won't be the new norm, probably need to assume that's around 35 these days.
 
You're using Ibrahimovic as an example when there are very very few strikers around playing at a top club at the age of 39. And even then, you could argue AC Milan wasn't near the highest level 3 years ago.

Even Ronaldo who has had a much better and more impressive career than Zlatan isn't playing at a top club and he's 38....and you could argue he's been just as professional (if not better) with regards to his fitness etc.

Like I say, if Madrid sign Kane, it will be for the next 3 years, not for when he's 34 with very little residual value.

I'm using them as examples because they're high profile and high level strikers, like Kane is.

AC Milan won the league last season, and finished 2nd the year before that, not sure how that's not high level.

I'm not saying Kane is going to be banging them in at 39.

I'm just arguing against the implication in your original post that Kane wouldn't still be able to play at the top level at 33.

Another example is Suarez.
Winning the league title with Atletico at 34, scoring 21 in 32 games.

I've not tried to claim that they'd be buying him with resale value in mind, so not sure why you've mentioned that last bit.
 
Obviously I could be wrong and Kane really tails off in the next few years, I hope he doesn't.

I don't think Kane will end up there though, the finances at Real Madrid aren't amazing (by their standards) and they're already forking out a fortune on Jude Bellingham.
 
Last edited:
Kane wants 2 things. To break Alan shearers record and to win trophies. For me, he either gets his move this summer after a summer long of Levy hardball and eventually gets his wish.

Or runs down his contract and goes to Chelsea, United or Liverpool on a free next summer.

Don’t see him being interested in a move abroad whilst he’s got the chance to become the premier league record scorer
 
Kane wants 2 things. To break Alan shearers record and to win trophies. For me, he either gets his move this summer after a summer long of Levy hardball and eventually gets his wish.

Or runs down his contract and goes to Chelsea, United or Liverpool on a free next summer.

Don’t see him being interested in a move abroad whilst he’s got the chance to become the premier league record scorer

I think he's going to be well aware of the mockery surrounding him over not winning a trophy in his career.

Shearer gets mocked for his lack of trophies all the time, and he actually won the Premier League.

I think he'd jump at the chance of joining Real Madrid if they were seriously interested.
They've won at least one trophy in something like 26 of the last 30 seasons.

Unlike Bayern Munich and PSG, there's at least a thin veneer of respect around Real Madrid's trophies because they're competing with another club regularly.

I could be wrong, but I think he'd take a league title over "just" being the top scorer in England in the last 30 years.
He talks about/is asked about the record all the time because it's the only thing he's really competing for at Tottenham.
 
A few 'older' strikers are still doing the business, particularly in Europe (maybe suits them better than the fast paced premier league). Giroud is still scoring regularly, even Dzeko is picked ahead of Lukaku, Then you have lewandowski, benzema, Messi and Ronaldo. None of them leaving slowly or anytime soon!
Scoring used to be a young mans game. Apart from Haaland, the old guns are giving them a run for their money.
 
Back
Top