Málaga V Real Madrid

i've never seen mayoral play so i can't comment on that...now zidane could be thinking "who do i sub him on for"? "what will the media and fans say if it doesn't work"? well, if zidane really wants to earn his stripes, he has to take these hard decisions and forget about the media and fans. he'll have to be his own man; not the president's man, and make his own choices. personally, i don't know about the mayoral move, i doubt it would have made a difference. malaga were super super confident and let's not forget.....we had a full squad against them in september and did ZERO.

We played Roma exactly like Carlo plays big away CL games... 442 counter attack. Our midfield is softer because we don't have Di Maria or Alonso but the shape and tactics are the same.

Benz tweaked his hip/back in the Granada game apparently... so his movements have been stopped. He's really the key to our attack since he's the only one on the squad who knows how to play the middle and spring our attack.

with Ronaldo (and Bale), it's more about through balls on diagonal runs and crosses. It's pretty plain vanilla.

We're playing a high line, our shape is a tight 433 on the attack/442 on defense and we're moving a lot more. I don't really know what more we can do at this point.

One of Isco and James MUST pick up form. Those two being average is a problem. They're supposed to provide the secondary attacking options and they're not.

Benzema and Bale injured right in time for crucial games of season. Missed them badly. Can't play first time front three and win tough games like Malaga away.,

Kroos at DM was badly exposed again. This needs to be addressed. Thought all their chances came because of our lack of defensive ability through center.

once again guys, bale benzema james kroos cristiano were all fit for the first tie against them...nothing happened. our problems are deep rooted. the team lacks grit, and strangely enough, with all the attacking midfielders we have, we also lack ideas. and frankly, it is astounding. remember, even with a full house, we played no different against juve or valencia last season. navas was the only good player out there in my opinion

I don't think there is much to discuss without so many key players.. It could have been worse

we had bad shape under Rafa tito... large line gaps, only 2 guys playing the mid and the forwards playing very high up the pitch. Team was broken into two. Didn't matter who was playing up front with that.

Today, the issue was that, other than Ronaldo at times, the other forwards weren't making consistent good runs or were predictable. We had the ball at the feet of our mids in dangerous positions... but they didn't have enough options.

Very different game.

titosantill wrote:once again guys, bale benzema james kroos cristiano were all fit for the first tie against them...nothing happened. our problems are deep rooted. the team lacks grit, and strangely enough, with all the attacking midfielders we have, we also lack ideas. and frankly, it is astounding. remember, even with a full house, we played no different against juve or valencia last season. navas was the only good player out there in my opinion

Yeah, but that was a full squad with a scrub manager that the players didn't like..

Key injuries plus Zidane being asked too much in fairly little time, I would not worry much this season as it has long since been derailed by rafa. Not much Zidane can do unless he is 2nd coming of Carlo.

I wouldnt worry about this match much. Worry about players and balance more.

@sport, @leswagg i'm not just referencing the last malaga game under benites. But even under carlo, the games against juventus, valencia, they were very similar to this game today. lack of ideas. in terms of league consistency, i guess i'm not as optimistic as you guys with the personnel. think about it and back to that juve game, when it looked like that italian defense won't budge, every ball started going to marcelo....this is madrid for crying out loud, the left back shouldn't be the go to guy.

forget about today's game, that granada game; tactics aside, unless we can create a reasonable lead early on, we don't want any confrontation, because when things get tough, it becomes one touch passes that won't work, or long ball to marcelo. hell, someone mentioned after the roma game, that it wasn't until a piece of individual brilliance we got a goal

and honestly i don't even know what to suggest, just hope we can play with some mental toughness the rest of the way....its almost like we used up all that mental fortitude in that decima battle with atleti

That's the thing...  i don't see an obvious solution to our problems.  HOWEVER, I do see certain things that Zidane could do.  Namely:  If BBC aren't on the pitch together, you can afford to play a DM.  Isco or James (whoever is playing as forward that game), can dezone to help creatively with the mid.  I understand you want to build the synergy between Kroos and Modric.  But sometimes, you need to be a bit more pragmatic.

I would have played a diamond 442 in this one.  But that's just me.

I think he wanted to give Kova a chance as a CM and Isco as a forward... but neither really did much to impress. Same with Jese.

Really, Nacho, Kova and Jese were all very meh and it surprises me because i would think you'd want to bust yourself when you get a chance. They were very passive.

All this said... if CR doesn't miss a PK (it was a very poorly taken pk), we win this game. I think CR only showed up for 15 mins of the game lol. Didn't hear from him before or after that.

Hapless_Hans wrote:

sportsczy wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:more like that's the problem if you have a completely unproven amateur as manager

Nice troll.  

Why do you call it trolling. It's just simply stating facts.

Fact is, noone of you can reasonably explain what qualifies Zidane to be manager of Real Madrid at this moment in time.

Nothing qualifies him. He's an unproven amateur.

Obviously, in your wild imagination, which you have expressed in countless long posts of utopian fan-tasy fiction, he's some kind of coaching prodigy, but in real life, there is ZERO evidence for it asn no record whatsoever.

Can't believe you guys were bad mouthing a seasoned pro like Benitez from the get go, yet you keep euphemizing these completely clueless displays

A seasoned, incompetent idiot is a more accurate description of that punk. Why do you keep defending that incompetent hans?

Answer me this: Would you consider Rafa benitez @ bayern?
Answer that honestly. Do you actually appreciate his stone age football philosophy?

Zidane is an unproven whelp, but he has shadowed two very important people. Plus he has his badges. Not like hes an amateur. Inexperienced at top level yes but you got to start somewhere. And for me Zidane has much better ideas and philosophy than that fool who is the embarrassment of Madrid.
Ruben De la Red would make a better coach than that punk.

Besides, from what little we've seen, Zidane has the right ideas but doesnt have the personnel for it. And this season was derailed from the beginning anyways. For me this current season is just a extended preseason for us. Figuring out what works and what doesnt. I expect many changes in the summer.

Benitez would have been killed for a game like thid but since its zidane we blame personnel now lol

Zidane is an idiot for thinking that he can build a team around Kroos as his mediocentro, its a waste of time.

sportsczy wrote:All this said...  if CR doesn't miss a PK (it was a very poorly taken pk), we win this game.  I think CR only showed up for 15 mins of the game lol.  Didn't hear from him before or after that.

He was running into space more than he usually does. Not that it matters, when it doesn't lead to anything, but I think it's better than watching him stroll around in frustration/indifference. His end product left much to be desired, but he was the only Real Madrid player who consistently fought to make something out of the many sporadic crosses that were being played in the second half. As for the penalty, sure, it was a poor one. He's definitely not one of the worst penalty takers out there, though. He's bound to miss them every once in a while, and it's opportunistic to blame it all on him. I'm not saying that you are blaming it on him, but if we're going to talk about "if only..", then you could also argue that the first goal was a clear offside.

I honestly feel bad for Kova. His last two games have been rather underwhelming, but I think he's showed more initiative and devotion than the rest of the team in previous games, yet Rafa didn't seem to care much for him. Some of you have mentioned that you've noticed similarities between how the team performed today, and how they performed under Rafa. I think it's pretty clear that we don't have any starters who put as much heart and effort into their performance as the Mullers, Rooneys, Tevez'.. Di Marias. When there's no drive to win, it really shows.

Not really blaming him...  saying that the PK and the 1v1 miss by Jese are mostly to blame for the loss.  We should have scored one of those, if not both.  Also, CR had a couple of other opportunities but he tried to bludgeon it and missed the target.

As far as building around Kroos...  who are we supposed to put there?  Casemiro??  Everyone knows that's politically impossible.  Besides, when BBC is healthy, it's a bad choice as i've mentioned ad nauseum because you have no buildup help from the front 3.  Pretty clear Zidane is looking to prepare for CL mostly and Kroos-Modric-Kova/Isco with BBC in front of them is the way to go there...

And please, do you want me to bring out the pics showing the shape of the team with Rafa and compare that to Zidane?  At least we're set up properly with Zidane.  With Rafa, we had 4 defender (one of which was Danilo) sitting low, 2 poor CMs and then 4 forwards playing high.  The personnel is not the right mix but at least we're not at a tactical disadvantage like we were with Rafa.

I remind all of you that we are 6 wins and 2 draws under zidane in 8 games.  Rafa was 11 wins , 4 draws and 3 losses.  Our results are far far better so far.

We were never going to go from being mediocre under Rafa to elite under Zizou magically. We need a preseason and a mercato for that kind of transformation. Best we can hope for is to be competitive. We'll see how we look against Atleti and Barca + rest of CL. As long as we're competitive the rest of the way, i think it's mission accomplished.

The team needs a lot of work. The players seem unable to work as a unit in defense and there still are gaps in midfield.

Just watched most of the game for the most part.

CR didn't even get that many touches. And I'm not surprised with the way the midfield played.
He had two clear cut opportunities, one he buried, one he missed. that's football. he pretty much created that other chance too.


Damn it kovacic, poor game from him and I expect him to do better. and I KNOW he can do better then that. He was still better then james/isco lol, I guess that's saying something.

It's not llike we were going to win the league, this season is lost, the league is lost and we don't stand a chance in CL

Kovacic it's too shy he has to take more risks, he's a very basic player i don't think a Castilla player would do worse TBH.

Let me get one thing out of the way before going any further: Rafa is gone, and rightly so. If you really think he should've been kept on, you really need to rethink your position on whether or not you're a true fan. Z, or anybody for that matter, shouldn't be exempt from criticism either. So please, leave your bias at home, for this is Real Madrid, not your father's company.

Now, back on topic. I really can't say that I was surprised that we drew Malaga. The same very problems that I kept harping on after the Roma, Granada, Bilbao and Betis games were strongly present against the Andalusian side. Only this time, there was no individual goal to bail us out. You could almost see question marks hovering over our midfielders' heads because there's nobody to pass the ball to up front. Our link-up play was horrendous, same as it was against Roma and all the other games. The only difference is that it's more perceivable in away games.

I honestly believe we didn't deserve to even draw the game. Malaga outplayed us and deserved the three points.

There are so many problems dragging us down - and what's even worse is that Z is not trying to fix them because they keep on popping up in every single game. We have tactical deficiencies that can be blamed on Z (Like Isco playing as a false nine, my god). But we also have problems directly related to work rate and grit - Two things that most of our players still don't know the meaning of. At some point during the Malaga game, there were only 6 players defending. Let me repeat it again because it's hilarious: There were only 6 players defending.

We're simply not good enough, from the president to the board of directors, to the coach, to the players, everybody, and we deserve every single rock thrown at us.

I just want to salute Keylor for everything he's done for Real Madrid - A world class goalkeeper playing for a mediocre team.

I agree with you,that's why I think the only possible solution is to reconstruct the club,do a clearout. Get good players who'll actually be happy to play for the club and freaking run and fight. There's too much ego in the team. From Florentino to Ramos to Ronaldo. Our defence and attack are both lacking a lot. Our GK is great and fights for our shirt. Our middlefield is good enough.
There's nothing to lose. We won 1 La Liga in 7 or 8 years and 1 UCL in that time. This season we're likely to finish 3rc because ATM has a much easier schedule remaining. Splash the cash away,get motivated players. Dybala or heck even Pogba. I used to be absolutely against the idea of Pogba and I still AM. But I'm getting so desperate,perhaps the dude would actually try to justify playing for the greatest club in the world.
Get Dybala and a winger or two. Improve the defence,get a good young CB since we have the transfer ban. Get rid of the deadweight.

Does Zidane even have the personnel to do a quick fix or better put, the quick fix we need for the remainder of the season?

I think there are too many top 11 players that need significant cover for their weaknesses:
-  Kroos - discussed ad nausea
-  Danilo - fixed by starting Carvajal
-  Marcelo - he's been dismal defensively.  Really awful.  That doesn't help a midfield that already isn't great on D. But what's the alternative?
-  Isco and James being out of form - only way you can hope to fix that is by playing them and hoping they find it.
-  Ronaldo not tracking back - that's never getting fixed
-  Bale always being injured - it is what it is

Kovacic is being given a chance but he's failed in to impress so far.  Jese has been better off the bench then as a starter. Does Casemiro get a chance next?

I mean that's a lot of stuff to try and figure towards the end of February.

I know sports seems pretty bias. And both of us are to Zidane, but seriously, this squad is just so unbalanced. What can you do when you play with 10's as your midfielders with wingers and fullbacks who are primarily attacking? No one defends space on this team well besides modric and casemiro.

Look at Juve today.... they tried to play the ball on the ground from the defense and they failed miserably because Pep's Barca are too good technically. They went down 2. What did they do? They decided to get very physical. They punched Bayern and Bayern got off their game. They were able to come back, get a draw and keep hope alive for the return leg.

With the current Madrid as constructed, the players are incapable of executing a plan B. We have no physical and/or athletic presence. So either we're able to impose our will technically on the opponent... or we're ripe for the taking.

That's why I harp so much on getting athleticism and physicality with our transfers this summer. We have to be able to execute different styles because we're not dominant in our preferred one... need to become more pragmatic and stop trying to be so pretty.