Belgium national team manager Roberto Martinez has claimed that Christian Benteke’s struggles at Crystal Palace are largely down to his teammates.
The Spaniard, as quoted by the Croydon Advertiser, discussed his thoughts on Benteke’s rut with Palace on Goals on Sunday and claimed that the striker is being starved of service by his Eagles teammates.
The problem is if Christian Benteke had those two chances in every game they played he would score goals. I don’t think the problem is scoring, it’s the team creating those chances, if they create a similar amount of chances that they created [against Liverpool] from now until the end of the season, you’ll see Christian Benteke is a goalscorer.
Benteke had two gilt-edged chances to net for Palace at the weekend as they faced Liverpool. However, the former Aston Villa man failed to capitalise on his opportunities and his former side Liverpool came away with a 2-1 win courtesy of a late goal from Mohamed Salah.
The Belgian international came in for plenty of criticism following his performance against the Reds, but Martinez was quick to defend him.
You want a striker to be there for those chances. I was very pleased with his performance, he was a real focal point for Crystal Palace, in the first half Liverpool couldn’t cope with him. Christian Benteke won every aerial ball and when you use him in the right way he’s very efficient.
Benteke will be desperate to play a part in keeping Palace afloat in the Premier League, with Martinez one man who he will be keen to impress as this summer’s World Cup edges ever closer.
