The Demon of Carthage wrote:I agree, the disrespect is unreal.

Hala, stop disrespecting the clown please.

@hala, the situation is simple. the ball is in isco's court, you want to play, convince the coach by training harder and performing with maximum effort on the pitch for the few seconds you get. capello went in front of the media and said beckham would never play for madrid again, becks didn't say anything, didn't give interviews, just kept training and when he got his chance, he took it.. gained don fabio's respect to the point, he was one of the first players capello called up when he coached england

at some point, the player has to take responsibility for his actions. its easy to go at the manager, but we don't know what's going on in training. maybe i'm wrong, but i honestly don't see what wrong solari is doing. every manager has a player that doesn't fit what they want to do, its up to that player to convince the manager.....a difficult task, yes, but that's part of being an athlete

He has become a cancer

He is Brazilian. you get past 30 and you are done.

We probably should have let him join Jjuve in hindsight.

Doc wrote:We probably should have let him join Jjuve in hindsight.

nah, we didn't know how reguilon would turn out. if reguilon ended up being a catastrophe, we'd end up with egg on our faces for an umpteenth poor decision we've made. my only issue now is, marcelo's poor performances doesn't help us in terms of moneys we can get from a sale

I did say "in hindsight". Not many folks, not even me I think, was touting Marcelo should be sold but in hindsight, yeah, probably should have sent him to Serie A.

no

he could actually work at juve, don't you guys play 3 at the back or am i mistaken? in that set up he may not be tasked to do anything defensively, or if so, his defensive role would be very limited.

We haven't played 3 at the back for a long time. Dani Alves was already too incapable in defense to be a fullback for us and had to be moved. Cancelo is having to be rotated for the same reason. Now Barzagli is semi-retired and Benatia left so we don't have the personnel to go back to 3 at the back.

Old homeless looking dad bod Marcelo would be terrible.

rincon wrote:

Old homeless looking dad bod Marcelo would be terrible.

He’s our second youngest senior, after Bale. Also, we’ve already established on here that 30 is the new 25, which is fucking convenient

What a cheeky jab

Not really a jab. Just amusing myself by the fact that we can't seem to agree on here that, once players enter their 30s, they're more often than not no longer in peak condition, and at a point of their career in which gambling on their longevity doesn't necessarily pay off in the short term, let alone the long term. Smaller clubs are often willing to make the gamble, but Real Madrid and other top clubs have never been known to do so. There's also the matter of how fragile these player's market values are at this stage - if not for that, I'd be all for keeping everyone worth keeping until their balls drop to the floor.

That's because you are dealing with people and not just arbitrarily selling and buying players. These 30 years old are often your best, captains and most valuable players. The guys that win you a game with experience and lead the others. There is more value when your club is looking to win trophies to extend the primes of those guys than to invest time on younger guys who may never reach that level of greatness.

Smaller clubs also don't win anything, they survive on selling young talents to bigger club so the approach is completely different.

I believe my theory applies to most of our senior players and Marcelo is the exception.

Our senior players are Benz, Bale, Modric, marcelo, Ramos, Navas.

I would agree with Nick re Ramos and possibly Modric, but with the others ???

30 in almost every sport is the beginning of the end imo... some super athletes that have great dedication and talent can extend their careers to 33-34. But that also depends on position, their style of play and the tactical setup of their manager.

Marcelo's issue is twofold for me right now:
- age and he was never a great athlete to begin with
- motivation

I think that he has 1-2 top years left in him IF HE WANTED TO. He doesn't want it at Madrid imo. Maybe he'll find that motivation somewhere else.

Regardless... he is a Madrid legend and really a joy to watch when he was playing with freedom. Never defended anything... so when his attacking threat wasn't there, he was always a liability on the pitch. But my god was he a threat for many years.

I hope he gets it together for his last few months at Madrid and leaves on a high note. Pretty obvious that this is his last season here.

Cadena Cope reported that Marcelo had a metting with JAS and he said he is not happy with his situation in Madrid, the criticism in the press and that he would consider his future this summer.

Lack of motivation can have just as much, if not more impact on performance than a lack of fitness, and that's one of many reasons why players tend to experience a nosedive in performance once they enter a certain age. Out of all of our seniors, I'd personally only be willing to gamble on Ramos. His flaws aren't going anywhere, but he is and always has been a fantastic athlete that will likely keep him relevant at the highest stage of football for a couple more seasons. I haven't noticed any signs of his motivation wavering, either. I genuinely love Modric. We have zero chance of finding a like for like replacement for him, but I no longer think he's fit enough to be in the starting XI for an entire season. Even in the world cup, I don't think he was all that impressive apart from a few, isolated performances. Ideally, I'd like to keep him in the rotation, but that's just not going to happen.

Theo, Hakimi, Reguilon.

Who will start at left back next season?

Hakimi is right footed and can't defend
Theo.. Not good enough to start
Reguillon played better than both in Madrid so if we stick to guys we already own, then Reguillon.

However Reguillon, while he is exquisitely balanced, lacks the attacking edge to be an elite fullback. So we will sign someone, hopefully Ferland Mendy, specially seeing how Firpo is injured all the time (not that I rate him that high anyway).

Ferland Mendy is going to cost a king's ransom. Every club is on him. Will we be ready to pay? Kids go for the money these days more than ever before.

Ronaldo leaving hit him hard i guess, but honestly he should be professional enough to continue working and playing hard for the club. If we sell him i dont think Reguilon is good enought YET to be undisputed starter. Remember we still had Arbeloa when Carvajal was slowly integrated into the team, so i think the best option is to keep Marcelo with Reguilon continuing his development. Signing a new LB might be difficult because there arent many top LBs AND it might hinder Reguilon's development

I have read and seen enough to think that right footed left backs are not desirable as they are inherently restricted due to sub optimal positional contexts.

According to an article by El Confidencial, Madrid made "promises" to Theo about coming back next season. I can totally see this board stick with Theo and Reguilon at the expense of going for more talented options.

As Nick alluded to, Reguilon lacks the technique, dribbling, and pace to be Elite, but may grow enough to cement himself as the back up for good.

Reguilon has been great. we have lost many many points to Marcelo this season. Reguilon have been very good in every game he has played bar Ajax. considering his age and inexperience, we should not consider buying another LB imo. give him time and if he didn't reach the level required then we can buy an LB.

we need wingers, a replacement for Modric and a goalscorer. LB is covered imo.

I don't think this is his last season here. I think we get a new manager in summer who gives Marcelo assurances to stay. The problem is that everyone in the world knows his defensive frailty apart from Solari. Otherwise Solari would have more of a tactical plan to cover for Marcelo's defensive issues.

Solari plays dinosaur ball with defensive fullbacks and traditional wingers. Marcelo, as an attacking wingback essentially, just doesn't fit Solari's system and Solari is unwilling to have ANY tactical flexibility to cover Marcelo's weaknesses. Of course Marcelo looks a lot worse than he normally would, the player profile he has clashes directly with the way Solari wants a LB to play.

We get a new coach with more tactical understanding of modern football and this issue goes away imo. It would be an incredibly sad day when we throw away one of our best offensive weapons, a club legend, who happens to be our best LB of all time over a bad 6 months.