Bring back Özil

Worst decision Flo has done in a long time. We miss him so bad in our final third.

Maybe you meant Di Maria? Ozil was too slow for the galactico and was clasico flop most of the time. Di maria was the one who was destroying barcelona

^ Agreed. Accommodating Özil with BBC would be difficult, but in a three-man midfield Di Maria > Kroos.

Ozil heading out wasn't even a mistake

It has nothing to do with Ozil or anybody for that matter. We played really bad as a unit and we deserved to lose. The starting lineup was strong enough to defeat Wolfsburg. There's abso-freaking-lutely no excuse for last night's defeat. None. Some people want to blame Danilo for everything, but truth is, and aside from Jesé and Bale, everybody else played bad as well. Everybody should feel ashamed of themselves, from that guy who's become a liability now with his ridiculous injury-pronitude, to the guy with the drawing board.

We're now like Sevilla or Emery's Valencia: we struggle against almost everybody but we can sometimes grind out a win against a heavyweight, and occasionally put six past poor, hopeless teams. Yes, we're no longer elite.

I'd rather exit the competition now against Wolfsburg than draw Bayern or Barça later and get humiliated.

I'll keep the names of the players that I desperately want to leave this summer and my final verdict of Z to myself for the time being.

My only remaining hope, which grows more distant and unattainable with every each day passing, is for Real Madrid fans on GL to stop this ridiculous bias towards their countrymen or their favorite players and solely support Real Madrid. No disrespect to anybody, but dammit it's so tiring and sad to see people constantly and so desperately trying to come up with excuses to defend the undefendable.

Then you can start with Jese and Bale.
Absolutely nobody played well or even average against wolfsburg. Nobody.

I have a strong dislike for inconsistency.

We can easily beat Wolfsburg by 2 or more goals at home btw...  It's not the end of the world.  We just had an emotional letdown after the clasico win.  Wolfsburg is a middle of the pack Bundi team with pretty poor defense.

I personally think we beat them pretty handily at home.

Benzema just had a severe knock and will be there. I just hope Varane makes it back because he is our best CB by far and we need his calm back there. We'll be at full strength methinks.

As far as Ozil... we need to bring back another 10???

We need a player who can penetrate a defense with the ball at his feet not another passer. We have enough of them tbh

No need for ozil in that case, kroos and modric just need to grow a pair and stop playing it safe.

Lately, our passing has been too safe. Risky passes = chances.
Too many times I see Kroos in particular pass back or sideways. He has the vision and range. But he been playing it way too safe.

threads like these are just , seems like only yesterday ozil was a pos, super isco disco is who we really need, then it was james super passing and goals, now its back to needing ozil again, even though the team has ditched that position since isco flopped so hard at it, hope you guys grow out of the "grass is always greener" mentality one day.

@ turok... not just passing. Our midfielders aren't able to pierce the middle either via pass or dribble. Other than Modric, they're not very good imo. Kroos is ok... but there's a reason Pep benched him.

Just to be clear... those are all great players (Isco, James and Ozil).  But we play a 433 with 3 strikers.  There's just no role for them... they end up playing out of position.

What we need are midfielders that bring speed, physical impact, etc...  guys that can hold the ball and/or pierce lines and create outnumbered attacks.  Kroos and Casemiro are incapable of that.  Only one who can is Modric and that's too much pressure for one guy.

Badly built team.

Kroos wasn't benched by Pep iirc. The Spaniard absolutely loved him.

Benched is a strong word... Kroos struggled with injuries before Pep. It just so happened he was relatively healthy under Pep and he still managed only 24 Bundi starts out of 38. He got lucky Thiago Alcantara got injured... that got Kroos a lot more playing time than he would have otherwise gotten.

ozil would have fixed NADA. in this kind of game, he'd get tired after 60 minutes. ozil like our team was also heavily reliant on a counter attacking system, that allowed him space to thread passes on the break...i agree with chad, its high time we quit this "wishing for former players to return". we've done more than enough of that (i myself have been a victim of such thought process with regards a bunch of errors flo has made)....it won't help anything, for three reasons;

one- we weren't always the most dominant side with said player that fans are asking to return;

two- we hardly resign players that we sell. and in all likelihood are not about to do that now, (same goes for lass, flo's not signing him, forget it). so its very unrealistic. take a second to think; we all know flo and his ego, him resigning a sold player would mean him admitting selling in the first place was an error, and he would probably have to buy at a higher price, not realistic, nor smart

You say that sports but when Isco and James didnt have their current shit attitude and played for the team, we were much more solid for it. They sure didnt look out of position when they gave a shit. All I see is entitlement...

Lets not forget we're not giving james payrise he been wanting and he has become shit ever since. Wanting a payrise despite not a single major title won... entitled punk.

How hard is it too stop playing 433, it's not the end of the world.

4-2-3-1 has seen more success than the 433 if we take away Barcelona (a team that has seen success because of Messi more than tactics imo). Barca can get credit for their tactics once Messi retires and they keep that success. Til then it's just like Cruyff's team. Just attractive football.

We definitely need a AM in this team, imagine the assists Özil would get with BBC. Not that difficult to see how Özil can solve our problems. We won't win against Wolfsburg cuz they aren't scrubs tbh, they have some good defensive players + they are Germans (we always lose against Germans).

If we had Özil we wouldn't be struggling to score against Wolfsburg ffs, we need dem 10/10 vision passing

Beacuse another attacking midfielder is exactly what we need right?

4231 hasn't been more successful.  Barca, Juve, Bayern and Man U under SAF all played with 3 (if not more) midfielders.  Mou had success with the 4231 because he had incredible workhorse to make it work like Makelele, Essien and Cambiasso.  But football has even evolved since then... everyone is adopting the total football concepts of the Dutch and Barca, which makes a 4231 a disastrous tactic imo because they overwhelm the middle of the pitch.  Mou saw that himself, which is why he tried to get Ozil to cover more CM duties (which failed).

As a former player, i can tell you that the most important part of the pitch is the middle.  It dictates everything... both offensively and defensively.  That's why i never understood why you would risk losing the most prime of real estate football in order to gain incremental advantage in other areas.  The risk/reward makes no sense to me.

Of course, another big factor today is that everyone is more athletic so you need to keep the team balanced...  if you overload one way or another, the opposition immediately jumps on that advantage if there is no insurmountable talent gap which makes a lack of balance something you can get away with.

sportsczy wrote:4231 hasn't been more successful.  Barca, Juve, Bayern and Man U under SAF all played with 3 (if not more) midfielders.  Mou had success with the 4231 because he had incredible workhorse to make it work like Makelele, Essien and Cambiasso.  But football has even evolved since then... everyone is adopting the total football concepts of the Dutch and Barca, which makes a 4231 a disastrous tactic imo because they overwhelm the middle of the pitch. Mou saw that himself, which is why he tried to get Ozil to cover more CM duties (which failed).

As a former player, i can tell you that the most important part of the pitch is the middle.  It dictates everything... both offensively and defensively.  That's why i never understood why you would risk losing the most prime of real estate football in order to gain incremental advantage in other areas.  The risk/reward makes no sense to me.

Of course, another big factor today is that everyone is more athletic so you need to keep the team balanced...  if you overload one way or another, the opposition immediately jumps on that advantage if there is no insurmountable talent advantage.

you adapt the tactics to the players you have. what the hell is total football ? atletico have been playing reactive football for years. we won the cl playing reactive football, bayern destroyed barca in the same way. a team plays to its strengths. united has always been a team that played through the wings, even when they had keane and scholes.

total football means tight line gaps, balanced pitch coverage, and everyone contributing to both sides of the ball.  So from keeper to striker, all the players are asked to defend, attack, be able to make accurate short or long passes, control the ball comfortably, etc.

It basically blurs the traditional narrow roles...  the players need to be well rounded and do a bit of everything to an acceptable level.

If you have the strikers dropping back to help the midfielders recover the ball and the defense pushes up its line also to close open passing lanes... then you're going to be outnumbered massively in a 4231...  it's just playing the odds.

i agree with valkyrja's point. i don't believe in one ideal formation; i mean today everyone is saying "we have to play 433", tomorrow it'll be something else, at one point playing any style without 2 strikers was considered criminal. i'm not saying we should or shouldn't switch the formations, but its good to keep an open mind. ozil is not needed, that deal's done and dusted. but guest7 makes a good point regarding 433 not being the end of the world.....

based on our summer movements and the manager, we'll be able to best analyze what formation will be ideal. but to sit back and say "whoever comes in, we have to fit them in a 433"- assumes two things.

1- that our problem is simple and limited to "throw one new body in the middle or a few at the back and everything solved"

2-that the only way we can ever achieve anything is based solely on that system

i agree with valkyrja's point. i don't believe in one ideal formation; i mean today everyone is saying "we have to play 433", tomorrow it'll be something else, at one point playing any style without 2 strikers was considered criminal. i'm not saying we should or shouldn't switch the formations, but its good to keep an open mind. ozil is not needed, that deal's done and dusted. but guest7 makes a good point regarding 433 not being the end of the world.....

based on our summer movements and the manager, we'll be able to best analyze what formation will be ideal. but to sit back and say "whoever comes in, we have to fit them in a 433"- assumes two things.

1- that our problem is simple and limited to "throw one new body in the middle or a few at the back and everything solved"

2-that the only way we can ever achieve anything is based solely on that system

The thing is it's not about adapting tactics to the players... never has been in football. The greatest managers now and in the past have a very defined philosophy and they get players that can execute that philosophy.

Reason that most managers are adopting a 433-based primary philosophy with an alternative for specific situations is that it's a base tactic that best suits the current rules and level of athleticism.

I'll even say that one of the reasons CR is having such problems in terms of winning team trophies is that he is too stubborn with how he plays... he won't adapt to a philosophy that would be best suited for his team to win. Instead, he expects the team to adapt to him. Possession-based/control-based tactics don't fit the way he wants to play. We all know how that's worked out for him at Madrid and Portugal.

It's much more a team game than a game about individualities.

once again, i don't believe in someone finding "the most effective tactic" and then finding pieces to fit. "the most effective tactic" is very theoretical. maybe i'm missing your point, but there's no strategy without taking into account players (players you have, players you want to sign). i'm not a coach, nor have i coached or managed, but one thing i noticed is that its like we almost ignore how much coaches are also inspired by players. sacchi had a "philosophy" (i hate that word in football) it never worked after milan, and when don fabio took over, his style was extremely different, and i think they went unbeaten in one year

u can't have tactics and ignore players, then it simply becomes theory, you also can't have players and ignore tactics, then you become.....you become us

We can't bring back desire though. You can have all the technically gifted players but still loose if they don't have desire to win consistently.

Players walked under Benitez and we thought it was a managerial problem and he got sacked.

Later after the honeymoon period with zidane things went back to normal level. Intensity dropped,Bernabue questioned players desire one month before with a board that said "if you wear this jearsy you have to sweat it" something along the line. Zidane publically called out team to run more.. Especially some players. When questioned their v desire they ran like mad men against some teams and we thought every thing is alright. Then came the lethargic display against Las palmas and we realized it was just temporary rush of blood.

Then again they committed themselves against Barcelona, no body has to explain where the desire came from. We are now back to believing that these players have the desire to win important matches atleast. They gave us hope. Two days later again lethargic and unambitious display. This time against Wolfsburg in the only competition we have a chance to win.


Does it look like one off thing to you guys. Honestly think the damage is permanent. We can't buy desire to the team... Players needs to have it or manager has to bring it. Not alot manager can do though. The fact that we ran the least in our entire CL campaign was a total shock.

This is why it's important to sell the senior members whome are holding us back. Proof? 1 league in 8 years.