Replacing Ronaldo’s 50 goals per season will be challenging for Real admits Kroos

Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos has admitted it will be difficult for the club to replace the goalscoring exploits of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ronaldo, 33, joined Serie A champions Juventus in July on a four-year deal, ending a nine-season association with Real Madrid.

The Portuguese forward scored 450 goals in 438 games during his time at the club, averaging 50 per season and finished as top scorer in the Champions League in each of the past six campaigns.

And while Kroos understands Madrid will struggle to replace the goals Ronaldo guaranteed, he believes the club will cope and fight for trophies again.

“We’ll see about that,” Kroos told German publication Kicker (via ESPN).

“It’ll be difficult to compensate 50 goals per season. Cristiano has been an important cornerstone for us in the past years, and was instrumental for our successes.

“In spite of that I am absolutely convinced of our team. We will again be hard to beat this term.”

So far throughout the summer Real Madrid have been linked with moves for Neymar, Robert Lewandowski and Mauro Icardi but their only attacking signing has been of Brazilian teenager Vinicius Junior.

The European champions have until the end of August to finalise their squads for the upcoming season, but kick off their competitive campaign against rivals Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup on August 15.

Where the Real Madrid goals came from last season

In all competitions last season, Real Madrid scored 148 goals spread over 15 different goalscorers (not including own goals).

Ronaldo led the way with 44 in all competitions, 29.7% of Madrid’s total tally and 23 ahead of his closest rival Gareth Bale (21).

Only Karim Benzema (12) and Marco Asensio (11) joined Ronaldo and Bale in scoring more than 10 goals last season. Further behind were Isco (nine) and Lucas Vazquez (eight), with Casemiro and Borja Mayoral both scoring seven each.

Kroos himself scored five goals last season, alongside Marcelo and Sergio Ramos, one more than Nacho. Dani Ceballo, Achraf Hakimi and Luka Modric all scored two with four own goals making up the 148.

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