As promised to yuri_yukov and el_buitre, I have some time after breakfast

Many question, why he struggles in Real Madrid as CF.

The answer is very short, he is not a CF

To add more salt to his fans' wounds, he plays similar to CR7 with the difference that CR7>him pretty much. So the real question is CR7 or Benz?

(S)EXPLANATION

First of all, there is a term called 'a flair player' .These types of players need some freedom and service to express themselves on the pitch. Each top club has got some of them to ensure their competitivness.You can make them track back or cover defensivly to some degree but they will lose most of their 'flair' as a result first and second, almost all of them would never achieve the back-tracking level of a player who is specialized in it.

Is it important?

Yes, it is. In top level, most of the teams act as a fluid body to close down space as much as possible for the opponent and to gain as much as possible in return.
Watch Manu or Barca for example, they attack and defend as a whole.If you don't do it, you are automatically at disadvantage. Anyone still remembers the 5-0 drubbing we received in Camp Nou?

What is the problem then?

You can't have too many of them in the same starting lineup. If each of them play like they should regardless of others it is like playing with -1 man each time ( 11 in total).

Is it possible to make them coexist?

Yes it is, you need different types of flair players who give up a little bit of their capacity for the sake of the team to gain balance in return.

Who are our flair players?

CR7, Kaka,Ozil, Benzema, Di Maria,Marcelo

Which of them can coexist?

Di Maria and Marcelo are natural freaks who are very good in tracking back, so we could basically exclude them from the problem list.However, Di Maria starts deeper and Marcelo doesn't attack as much as before, they sacrifice some of it for the sake of the team
The problematic folks are Benz, CR7, Ozil and Kaka.

Let's start with Kaka, in AC Milan , he had 3 people doing the dirty job for him.

Diamond formation:
---------Pirlo---------
player-----Gattuso
--------Kaka----------

Kaka plays best when you put him on the tip of diamond formation. If you play him in 4-2-3-1, he has to cover for one midfielder.Usually, he looks awesome in first half but in second half, our midfield falls apart
These guys are meant to sprint for their life all day long.People who sprint much can't cover ground like the kind of Alonsos or Xavis for 90 minutes.You have to be a spartan like Khedira or Pepe.
Why does he have to sprint?
With only 3 guys in attack, if you don't act fast, the defence won't be breached. All in all, Kaka is pretty reliable until the hour mark, then he becomes a burden to our system. -0,5 in first half,a very big -1 in second.

Next is Ozil, he plays in 4-2-3-1 as AM or 4-3-3 on the right wing or like Kaka on tip of diamond. Jose wouldn't play him on the tip of diamond at this stage because the guy has to have extreme goal scoring exploints. At this point, Ozil is more of a provider than scorer, it could change with Sahin's arrival of course (through balls).
Ozil's problem is slightly different from Kaka's.He has to cover too much ground fast in 4-2-3-1
Tactically, he is pretty much inept at the moment, so he needs a lot more energy to close down people than a Kaka.Him and Benzema are very similar in that aspect, they can close down but it costs them too much energy. You need years of competitive football to get the tactical awareness in this domain.It doesn't help that they are a little bit better than Paul Scholes in tackling
If Ozil played like Kaka, he would last for 120 minutes, as of now, he has to compensate for being a greenhorn with running exploits.
The difference between him and Kaka is that when he gets the ball, he doesn't have to release it immediatly.He can turn around with it, avoid challenges, pick up a pass calmly. It puts the other team on backfoot.They have to close him down in numbers or sit deep entirly to prevent damage. All in all, he is a double edged sword. If you give him the ball, you are +1, if you starve him of it, you are -0,5 until the 75 minute and -1 in the remaining 25 minutes.

CR7's tactical awareness is as good as Kaka's. They are our most 'educated flair players' (he cleverly closes down space, finds himself in free space, in some instances, he notices Marcelo's faulty runs and covers for him independently). He plays the best in 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 on the left wing. He can run down to cross with his left foot or cut in to shoot with his right. We use him as our focal point in attack so you won't see him crossing much, rather he'll be on the end of those crosses.




As you can see, CR7 needs the CF as decoy to take defenders away and Marcelo to stretch the defence, otherwise, there'd be no space to run into. If we attack from the right, he moves into CF position diagonally for the header (yellow arrow with football).The other winger is used to stretch the defence or to cut in shoot/cross for CR7.He is a constant -0,5 for the team.I'll explain the rest later.

When we counterattack from being deep in defence, CR7 or Kaka/Ozil are the usual outlets, sometimes the CF.I didn't draw arrows because palyers need to use their intelligence, there isn't a given pattern, just run into space and stretch everything possible


Why do I bother to draw formations with CR7?

It is the turn of our widely beloved child prodigy,Benzema.This guy takes his time on the ball similar to Ozil but the difference is that Ozil can play fast as well. He is the slowest of our attackers bar injury plagued Kaka. He likes to play on the wings in a 4-3-3 or as SS in 4-4-2. he doesn't just like to play there, he excels at it! He's got a godly first touch for an attacker, deadly finishing, good close linkup play and can dribble his ways not worse than CR7 or Marcelo on the team.
The problem, similar to Ozil, he is tactically pretty much inept. His style of play could be described as give him the ball in final third when he faces the goal then he'll do something.If he is asked to close down or make runs on his own into space without it, it's not his game at all. Again, similar to Ozil, he requires a lot of stamina to close down people because they are tactical greenhorns.In a highly competitive match , he wouldn't last more than 70 minutes.Another downside is that if you put him into a counterattack chain, he'll make the wrong decision most of the time.As it is, a coach would like to play him as deep in attack as possible, in other words in the end of chain=focal point.His best utilization:


or



The big positive is that he doesn't require Marcelo to create room for him constantly.You could play him on the right wing (first formation) with the almost same effect but the other winger has to be the width creator.He is a constant -1 without the ball and a -0.5 with it.

So, did you see why I drew best constellations for CR7 and Benzema?

Their prefered playing positions and the habit of being the focal point of the attack are the same(1st formation)
If you play both of them on the wings, who will be the width creator? Benz is not fast enough, Ronaldo wouldn't bother at all. We can't have them both around at their best, one of them gets the shorter stick for the team balance.
In our system, we don't have much linkup play, speed is more important. CR7>Benz.
We need aerial presence for our inverted wingers to cross for . CR7>Benz.
We need counterattack starters and finishers. CR7>Benz.
First touch. Benz>CR7
Finishing. Benz>CR7 but not that much because CR7 shoots from everywhere and Benz is more closer to goal as CF.
CR7 is the winner so far. I said somewhere that CR7 is a constant -0.5. We have him as our outer attacking outlet for counters or to start attacks deep in opponents half.He doesn't keep the ball much so he is a constant figure. He is not a -1 because he partially closes down space and pins back defenders with his explosivness. Yeah, it is the finishing blow to Benzema. When Ronnie is on, at least two defenders stay 4-6 meters in front of him, otherwise he might run away. The likes of Ozil, Marcelo & co. profit from it highly. Also, when teams try to come back against us, either we score from counters or keep their comeback potential at bay.

His second opponent is Ozil in second formation.If you play him there with Ronaldo on the team (CF), the team will be at -1,5 when we don't have the ball.You just can't do it against top teams.The second problem, he can never be as creative as Ozil. We can't use him as the sole chance creator with CR7 as attacking outlet.Whoever thinks that it is possible, wishful thinking. Jose subs Ozil or vice versa with that intent. Usually, Benz for Ozil later on because Benz will have more space to create.

Benzema's best time was when CR7 was injured or off form. Jose switched the focal point from CR7 to Benzema. In other words CR7 and Ozil became the creators for him as focal point.When CR7 came back strong again->we switched the focal point to him->Benz 'form' started declining...
From all of our flair players of different typs, he can coexist with Ozil only in a 4-3-3 comfortably.

What would his fans say? Let's play him as CF instead of Higuain.......

Okay, we have got CR7 as focal point and benz as the one who makes room for him....
In that position he will have to run A LOT, will be exhausted come by 70-75th minute and will see very little of the ball.Here comes the problem. Like I described earlier, he is a constant -1 without the ball because tactically inept with his runs.When you give him the ball, he is a -0,5 because he'll try to beat his man, most of the time losing the ball. It is not a problem for a team like Barcelona but we are not possession freaks.
To sum up, he is tactically inept with his runs, not explosive enough to scare defenders away ( not enough speed) and without the ball pretty much useless.In our system, he is a sub for CR7 and Ozil at best.
I don't want to tell you, how it is when you play him together with Kaka and CR7. He'll look like foreign body on the field. His runs are similar ro CR7 AND Kaka but those two are tactically very aware, benz not so much, he'll get the shorter stick most of the time

While it is okay to play with an attack consisting of Kaka,CR7,Benz and Ozil against the likes Villareal or Valencia who through all their players forward blow for blow, a team like Manu,Barca or even Lyon would murder us.

Benzema fans are very creative with their conspiracy theories about Mourinho.

Some facts about him:
In his Porto team, he had only one -0,5 guy called Deco
In his Chelsea team, he had Robben as -1 but soon got rid of him.He had no flair players
In his Inter team, again, no free guy to roam around
In our team, he allows us to play with up to four of them from time to time!!!!!
It is the most attacking team in his career
Against Farca, he had a tough choice.He moved CR7 into CF to make his defensive frailties into 0 (one reason of the many).Ozil or Benz had to come on in second half where Farca was tired already=less defensive responsibility.

And now, our most underrated players are.....................


Alonso, Khedira and Pepe

Some people want them to score as well, how? Without them we would lose all the top games this year.

My GF needs a lot of attention these days. I'll come back later.

Bump, I've got a feeling I'd need it again...

For the record when Pipa came from River Plate his natural position was as a SS setting up goals rather than scoring them. WE converted him into the player he is now by means of necessity and through the mentorship of a certain Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

We can't really do that with Benzema because he isn't only a goalscorer.

C'mon, playing Benz as poacher is a huge waste of talent...

Does he have to play as a poacher? Our attack has gotten very fluid with him. It's actually a good reason to force Rpnaldo inside a little more. PLayers moving around is confusing for a defense.

One of the reasons HIguain has had such a difficult time in europe is because he is played alone up top. He makes life easy for CBs to mark him and limit spaces for him to operate in.

Great analysis babun. A ton of work dude... Kudos. I agree with everything, except for maybe one part... If we had Benz to the right and cr7 to the left with Higuain in the middle, we'd be outright deadly. Why? When cr7 creates Benz crashes in with Higuain creating a two striker attack. Same goes with Benz creating and cr7 crashing. What can the defenders do? Most of them will forget about Higuain, and that's when he's deadly. Ozil plays right behind those three and Sahin/Alonso handle the link from the defense to the attack.

Benz has tracked back like crazy. It first takes effort to be a good defender. He's doing that.

Having di Maria and cr7 together is worse for me... They both kill the flow of the attack with over dribbling. One of them is fine as you need the one natural dribblers out there.

Our biggest fails this year has come from the midfield. To me, the attack was outstanding.

sportsczy wrote:Great analysis babun. A ton of work dude... Kudos. I agree with everything, except for maybe one part... If we had Benz to the right and cr7 to the left with Higuain in the middle, we'd be outright deadly. Why? When cr7 creates Benz crashes in with Higuain creating a two striker attack. Same goes with Benz creating and cr7 crashing. What can the defenders do? Most of them will forget about Higuain, and that's when he's deadly. Ozil plays right behind those three and Sahin/Alonso handle the link from the defense to the attack.

Benz has tracked back like crazy. It first takes effort to be a good defender. He's doing that.

Having di Maria and cr7 together is worse for me... They both kill the flow of the attack with over dribbling. One of them is fine as you need the one natural dribblers out there.

Our biggest fails this year has come from the midfield. To me, the attack was outstanding.

Injuries might be a big problem with the way we play if you field all the attackers at once... Di Maria covers a lot of ground, a lot of ground and still manages to attack.

babun1024 wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Great analysis babun. A ton of work dude... Kudos. I agree with everything, except for maybe one part... If we had Benz to the right and cr7 to the left with Higuain in the middle, we'd be outright deadly. Why? When cr7 creates Benz crashes in with Higuain creating a two striker attack. Same goes with Benz creating and cr7 crashing. What can the defenders do? Most of them will forget about Higuain, and that's when he's deadly. Ozil plays right behind those three and Sahin/Alonso handle the link from the defense to the attack.

Benz has tracked back like crazy. It first takes effort to be a good defender. He's doing that.

Having di Maria and cr7 together is worse for me... They both kill the flow of the attack with over dribbling. One of them is fine as you need the one natural dribblers out there.

Our biggest fails this year has come from the midfield. To me, the attack was outstanding.

Injuries might be a big problem with the way we play if you field all the attackers at once... Di Maria covers a lot of ground, a lot of ground and still manages to attack.

Yeah... but he mostly fails on the attack against the better teams. You'll have a couple of magic moments here and there. But for the most part, he just kills the attack. I really am not keen on his game at all. I'd rather have someone who facilitates the flow of the game, gets his teammates involved and is a consistent performer. He has the talent... but a 10 cent head on his shoulders.

is aguero a better cf than benzema?

by what ive seen aguero has good positioning and can dribble his way in the box and score.

hes a barcelona destryer custom made for mourinho in some ways

There's no such thing as an individual player being a Barca buster. To "bust" Barca, you need to play them closer to even in the midfield... and you need to have unselfish players. We failed on the attack because a) we didn't care about scoring goals, b) CR7 and Di Maria mostly forgot they had teammates and c) we gave up 65%+ possession.

Alonso, Sahin, Khedira and Ozil are the keys. Kun*, Benz and Higuain can all finish if given the opportunity. We just have given our CFs zero opportunities.

no thats not what i ment.

you have to work a system, if he thinks kun fits better, and can be more efficient, then that can be a reason.

My point is that Kun, Benzema or Higuain... Kun is the least efficient actually. But it has less to do with them and more to do with the service from the midfield against Barca. We did a good job controlling the danger areas in Barca's attack in the late Classicos... but we were horrible transitioning to the offense. CFs got zero service as a result.

Sahin's arrival will have a much, much bigger impact potentially to our Barca effectiveness than any change in CF. The reason is that the difference between Sahin and Khedira in terms of creativity is much larger than the difference between the CFs. In fact, imo, the CF issue is a wash.

u might be right and i concurr in a way. i just hope we play a way interin 2010 against barcelona and evolutionize it. we have better players than inter, we have all the tools to own barcelona harder than inter did, yet in all 5 matches all we showed is that we can hang o, but not own barcelona.

To be honest, i though we had the best CF combo in the world by far in terms of talent, age and productivity. The last place i though we would make a huge purchase was CF lol.

I was hoping we were going to grab a monster CB or RB. Coentrao is another shocker because he's a LB!

sportsczy wrote:My point is that Kun, Benzema or Higuain... Kun is the least efficient actually. But it has less to do with them and more to do with the service from the midfield against Barca. We did a good job controlling the danger areas in Barca's attack in the late Classicos... but we were horrible transitioning to the offense. CFs got zero service as a result.

Sahin's arrival will have a much, much bigger impact potentially to our Barca effectiveness than any change in CF. The reason is that the difference between Sahin and Khedira in terms of creativity is much larger than the difference between the CFs. In fact, imo, the CF issue is a wash.

I completely agree except I don't think that Sahin alone will be so crucial (but more important than any new CF or forward). It all depends our tactics and approach. It's not coincidence that Villarreal, Valencia and Pellegrini's Real Madrid could fight evenly with Barca and make them struggle by playing offensive football.

if you put it like that you make a "strong argument", who knows maybe all the rumors are bs...



more than a cb @ this moment a full back would be appreciated. coentrao is exactly the player mou wants but @ rb, if he himself said coentrao is a liked player oof his because of his avaiability @ different positions then that might be a clue that we going for fabio.

Error wrote:

sportsczy wrote:My point is that Kun, Benzema or Higuain... Kun is the least efficient actually. But it has less to do with them and more to do with the service from the midfield against Barca. We did a good job controlling the danger areas in Barca's attack in the late Classicos... but we were horrible transitioning to the offense. CFs got zero service as a result.

Sahin's arrival will have a much, much bigger impact potentially to our Barca effectiveness than any change in CF. The reason is that the difference between Sahin and Khedira in terms of creativity is much larger than the difference between the CFs. In fact, imo, the CF issue is a wash.

I completely agree except I don't think that Sahin alone will be so crucial (but more important than any new CF or forward). It all depends our tactics and approach. It's not coincidence that Villarreal, Valencia and Pellegrini's Real Madrid could fight evenly with Barca and make them struggle by playing offensive football.

thats one thing ive been tryong to point out, we have to make barcelona feel uncomfortable.

like inter did in 2010, barcelona got owned and couldnt even play tiki taka ffs...

the problem was that you had Pepe playing in the midfield with Alonso and Khedira. You can't really attack the midfield with that. Alonso is the only creative passer of the three and Barca just surrounded him. Pepe was a 5th defender.

With Khedira out and Lass in, it was worse.

But now you have a potential threesome of Sahin/Khedira/Alonso. They can no longer focus on Alonso. Ozil can play his natural role without having to help out deep (which didn't work anyhow).

An additional creative midfielder makes a massive difference because we can now attack them effectively in that zone. This past year, we almost had no choice but rely on counter attacks because of our lack of creative quality in the midfield.

With Sahin he can go box to box playmaking.

I know one great midfield can make a lot of difference but not even he can do much if coach's orders are only to counter attack.

Barca's style is quite unique and to fight against it you can try to do like Mourinho did, but that will only bring like 2 wins out of 10 games. His counter attack style relies a lot on luck and opponents mistakes. That's why best way to trouble Barca is to pressure and attack on them. They can't be let to play their own tiki taka game because if you do it then you are in a big trouble. Sooner or later they will find the necessary whole to score.

That's why IMO it's more important to have players who are good at keeping ball and passing (part where Sahin comes in). Barca always try to rush with multiple players on the guy with the ball. If you can pass the ball out of trouble then you make them waste energy which they hate to do. Barca's defense itself isn't that solid but they avoid it from getting exploited by keeping the ball at themselves most of the time.

now that i do agree with ERROR

We just have to get past the wave of pressure and then attack them with our attackers.

Error wrote:I know one great midfield can make a lot of difference but not even he can do much if coach's orders are only to counter attack.

Barca's style is quite unique and to fight against it you can try to do like Mourinho did, but that will only bring like 2 wins out of 10 games. His counter attack style relies a lot on luck and opponents mistakes. That's why best way to trouble Barca is to pressure and attack on them. They can't be let to play their own tiki taka game because if you do it then you are in a big trouble. Sooner or later they will find the necessary whole to score.

That's why IMO it's more important to have players who are good at keeping ball and passing (part where Sahin comes in). Barca always try to rush with multiple players on the guy with the ball. If you can pass the ball out of trouble then you make them waste energy which they hate to do. Barca's defense itself isn't that solid but they avoid it from getting exploited by keeping the ball at themselves most of the time.

We bought Sahin for this problem but the pressure that Barca puts on your players makes everyone frustrated. it seems if you want to get rid of their pressure you have to decide how/who to pass one sec before you recieve the ball. with this situation if we've had someone like Xavi who can pass with composure still he'd struggle to play at his full potential.

Xavi wouldnt struggle in our midfield, simply because he can dribble away from pressure, and can make sharp turn to get rid of his markers. Its something Alonso fails at, and Sahin is vast improvement as he is more mobile, but you wont see him twisting his way around 2 or 3 players and retain possession. He can do it, but how consistently and how effectively? we will see.