Bronze for a Messi-less MSN... but fiasco for a BBC currently in free-fall
If Europe’s attacking tridents were shares, the investors in the BBC would be going berserk. The performance in front of goal of Bale, Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo during the current season has been so discreet that they don’t even feature in the continent’s top five. Meanwhile, the MSN remain the third best - even without Lionel Messi.
In comparison with last season, the BBC have dropped. At this stage of the previous campaign they had scored 40 between the three of them - 23 for Ronaldo, 10 for Benzema and seven for Bale. Now, it’s almost half: Ronaldo has 13, Benzema seven and Bale just two. In the case of the Welshman, he’s not even the third top scorer in the side - James Rodriguez has one more than him. In addition, Bale and Benzema have not been aided by their fitness struggles.
Messi-Neymar-Suarez are doing much better. Despite Messi’s injury, the MSN have improved in respect to last season so far, from 23 to 32. Logically, Messi is the lowest scorer (six), while Neymar has improved (13 instead of 12). The difference is that Suarez has 13, too, and he’d hardly played by this stage last year.
And even without Messi, only two tridents are better than the MSN this season. The leaders are Bayern Munich (Miller 17, Lewandowski 19, Robben 5) with 41 goals, followed by another German side, Borussia Dortmund (Aubameyang 19, Reus 8, Mkhitaryan 8) with 35.
Perhaps surprisingly, Athletic Club (24) are fourth, with Aduriz (14), Williams (6) and Raul Garcia (4) all impressing. The top five is completed by Paris Saint-Germain: Zlatan (9), Cavan (9) and Di Maria (5) have combined for a total of 23.
