Ruud renewal

The man they call Van Gol has tied his fortunes to Real Madrid until 2010, the club announced earlier today. His contract was due to expire at the end of the current season, although it included a clause extending it for one further year if he made 35 appearances for Real Madrid. He left his previous club under a cloud, reportedly having fallen out with Sir Alex Ferguson, even though he had scored 150 goals for the club (38 of them in the Champions League, still a Manchester United club record).

Ruud joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2006 for 18 million euros and found success in his opening season by becoming pichichi, the league's top scorer, with 25 goals. Four of those were in the same game, against Osasuna, a feat not often achieved. In all, Van Nistelrooy has scored 46 times in 67 appearances for Real Madrid, so he's unlikely to top the 150 goals he scored for Manchester United by 2010 (it is one less season than the five he played for the Red Devils, after all).

There's no reason, other than injury, why he should not continue to score goals at the same rate until his new contract expires, as he will only turn 34 the following day. I suspect very few will disagree with the club's decision; readers of this blog voted him Player of the Month in December.

The contrasting fortunes of Ruud's fellow Dutchman, Arjen Robben, mean he has once again injured himself, the fourth time since he joined (already injured) from Chelsea. He truly is earning his nickname man of glass. Curiously, Bernd Schuster opted to pretend the injury hadn't happened in his press conference today in advance of the Copa del Rey tie tomorrow at Mallorca. The injury doesn't look serious and Robben should be back fit quite soon, but he's not going to get much of a chance to displace any of the other starters if he keeps getting injured.