Real Madrid coach Rafa Benitez says he is not worried about Cristiano Ronaldo being "anxious" or lacking sharpness in front of goal ahead of Wednesday's Champions League Group E game at Malmo.
Ronaldo scored a hat-trick as Madrid won this season's opening CL group game 4-0 at home to Shakhtar Donetsk, but the Portuguese has since taken 26 shots at the target without scoring once in his three subsequent La Liga games against Granada, Athletic Bilbao and Malaga.
Speaking after last weekend's 0-0 goalless draw at home to Malaga, Benitez had talked about "anxiousness" among his front players as having been the reason the team did not win -- which some observers took as a message to his attacking superstars.
Pushed on this idea at Tuesday's news conference at Malmo's New Stadium, the Blancos coach said he was "relaxed" about the situation and sure Ronaldo -- who has scored in only two of nine games for club and country so far this season -- would soon be back among the goals.
"I see Ronaldo same as the team, very good, creating chances, he will score for sure," Benitez said. "If teams keeps making chances, goals are guaranteed from him. So I am very relaxed about that."
Asked by reporters how he helped his front players to find "serenity" in front of goal, Benitez said: "I talked about anxiety in the last metres [last Saturday], as everyone wanted to so much to score, that they did not relax and take the best option. But even still we had some great chances.
"To give players confidence, we work on 'automatisms' so that when they get into that position, they are relaxed, they know what to do. There is no need to worry with Cristiano, as he is always there, and we all know his quality. We are also missing players who make and score goals, and we need to improve the numbers of those from the second line like Isco and Jese, so we do not depend so much on [Karim] Benzema and Cristiano."
Those missing players include attacking galacticos Gareth Bale and James Rodriguez, who are part of a lengthy Madrid injury list which also features centre-backs Sergio Ramos and Pepe, and right-back Danilo.
Bale, James and Ramos are thought to be close to a return to match fitness, but Benitez denied that any player had been left in Spain for precautionary reasons ahead of Sunday's crunch La Liga derby at Atletico Madrid.
"Our only objective is this game," he said. "So if they were ready for this game, they would be here. Jese is ready to play, [the others] are not yet ready to help us at 100 percent for this game."
Malmo, the 1979 European Cup runners-up, are taking part in only their second Champions League group campaign and were beaten 2-0 at Paris Saint-Germain on Matchday 1.
Benitez said that Madrid's players knew that if they underestimated their opponents, or let minds drift ahead to Atletico at the weekend, they would be punished.
"[Malmo] deserve to be here, in the Champions League, so if we do not take them seriously then we will have problems," he said.
"We must play as well as we can, we are sure they will have energy and give everything on the pitch. So we must concentrate.
"I go into this game as the most important -- it is the next game, we know what the Champions League means for us, for Real Madrid, the demands are the same every day, to win every game."