I personally think switching Di Maria and Ozil around did little to nothing, it was a throw in the dark in trying to get Madrid going cus we were simply playing badly.

I do agree that taking off Ozil and Di Maria handed the pitch to Bayern and if that was Mou's plan all along to conserve them for Barcelona then we should of had Sahin on the bench and put on Kaka as well.

But it's very easy to comment and judge in hindsight, it's a very different thing to be there on the touchline at the time and make the decision yourself.

Se7en wrote:

I'm wrong despite that we all saw the change ourselves in the game and zonalmarking also saying it.

ANYONE HERE THAT THINKS WHAT ZONALMARKING SAID IS WRONG HERE OR NOT?

For *bleep* sake I've said it 5 times I'm basing my arguments by WHAT I SAW + ZM.

No, your not.

Because you keep insisting the change of Di Maria and Ozil worked/produced a good result.

And your "proof" is zonalmarking.

The Franchise wrote:

Se7en wrote:

I'm wrong despite that we all saw the change ourselves in the game and zonalmarking also saying it.

ANYONE HERE THAT THINKS WHAT ZONALMARKING SAID IS WRONG HERE OR NOT?

For *bleep* sake I've said it 5 times I'm basing my arguments by WHAT I SAW + ZM.

No, your not.

Because you keep insisting the change of Di Maria and Ozil worked/produced a good result.

And your "proof" is zonalmarking.

No, my proof is our goal, where Özil scored becouse he was playing higher up in the pitch.

Now anyways, let's be honest who the *bleep* cares if it's my opinion or not. Not saying it isn't, but if it's wrong you're free to say it's wrong. And you and I know it isn't, so you're nitpicking that it isn't my argument, despite the argument being 100% correct.

It's incredible how delusional you become as soon as Mourinho comes in to the discussion.

Changing of ozil n Di maria was one of the reason Madrid failed to create chances as they usualy do because of Di maria's lack of OzilBrain

RealGunner wrote:Changing of ozil n Di maria was one of the reason Madrid failed to create chances as they usualy do because of Di maria's lack of OzilBrain

I disagree, Di Maria did very well, he was dribbling alot but had no open passing lanes to hand out the final ball. Di Maria is arguably our best final ball passer, but like I said, there were no open passing lanes for him. Also it's more about intent, Mourinho wanted him there becouse Özil wasn't tracking back properly and thus changing Di Maria in there is smarter.

We all know Özil is the better AM, but he is not the better defender. Mourinho clearly wanted a draw for this game.

No, thats not proof at all.

The goal was a standard counter, where Bayern didnt get back quickly and didnt mark correctly. It was next to nothing to do with anything Mou did here, despite what zonalmarking says.

I say, Mourinho made a mistake in swapping them around at all. In the first 10 minutes, Ozil found Benzema in space, because Ozil moves smart without the ball in the midde and found space Di Maria doesnt have the ability to find.

Then he changed it, throwing off not only Ozil's rhythem but also making both him and Di Maria less effective than they can be. Changing them back didnt do anything either, because both had lost some flow from being moved in the first place.

Again, the goal isnt proof, it was a counter which can happen regardless of if Di Maria is left or middle.

The only one thats delusion is you, because you love Mourinho so much, you refuse to criticize anything he does and any positive (even if not directly connected to Mourinho) you hype us.

Se7en wrote:

RealGunner wrote:Changing of ozil n Di maria was one of the reason Madrid failed to create chances as they usualy do because of Di maria's lack of OzilBrain

I disagree, Di Maria did very well, he was dribbling alot but had no open passing lanes to hand out the final ball. Di Maria is arguably our best final ball passer, but like I said, there were no open passing lanes for him. Also it's more about intent, Mourinho wanted him there becouse Özil wasn't tracking back properly and thus changing Di Maria in there is smarter.

We all know Özil is the better AM, but he is not the better defender. Mourinho clearly wanted a draw for this game.

I can remember on two separate occasions where he was in the middle and decided to shoot when we had players wide open to the left and right of him.

And best final ball passer? Are you insane?

As has already been said, Di Maria has a good final ball, but, he can't create the passing lanes. He does not really move into space while already have the next pass planned out. That is not his game. He can drift in from the right wing and then deliver a pass across to Ronaldo or Benzema, but hardy enough to be called the best final ball passer.

Further, if Mou only wanted to defend and with Bayern's attacks mostly through the wings, wouldn't he have left Di Maria on the wing to provide Arbeloa support?

So no, i dont think Mou swapped them for great defensive protection. It was clearly to score a goal, which did not work out and he had to swap back in the second half.

Your out of your mind, seriously.

Di Maria your best final passer? Di Maria, better final ball than Ozil.......

And you think Di Maria did well? How many times did he burst through the middle on counters and he messed them up?

Se7en wrote:

RealGunner wrote:Changing of ozil n Di maria was one of the reason Madrid failed to create chances as they usualy do because of Di maria's lack of OzilBrain

I disagree, Di Maria did very well, he was dribbling alot but had no open passing lanes to hand out the final ball. Di Maria is arguably our best final ball passer, but like I said, there were no open passing lanes for him. Also it's more about intent, Mourinho wanted him there becouse Özil wasn't tracking back properly and thus changing Di Maria in there is smarter.

We all know Özil is the better AM, but he is not the better defender. Mourinho clearly wanted a draw for this game.

I remember the whole game, Di maria Made some important passes to Benzema from the right early on in the game, When he was moved to the middle, He did nothing important apart from dribbling towards the final third and then opted to shoot instead of passing it to Ronaldo or Benzema.

He attempted 0 through balls last night, While he attempted 4 long balls from the Right Wing, All 4 successful to Ronaldo, Coentrao, Benzema and Khedira.

kiranr wrote:
Further, if Mou only wanted to defend and with Bayern's attacks mostly through the wings, wouldn't he have left Di Maria on the wing to provide Arbeloa support?

So no, i dont think Mou swapped them for great defensive protection. It was clearly to score a goal, which did not work out and he had to swap back in the second half.

The logic is, Bayern were bursting through the middle because they had 3 v 2 in there and Di Maria would be better off than Ozil helping in that area.

But thats fail because all Ozil or Di Maria had to do was pick up Gustavo, who for the first 70 minutes barely went past the half way line. It didnt take anything special defensively to solve it other than having Ozil pick him up.

That leaves Alonso and Sami 2 v 2 with Bastian and Kroos.

So, yeah, swapping Di Maria and Ozil for defensive purposes is weak as an arguement.

And even if its true, it made the attack much worse off..which is the entire point of this arguement..he isnt a great ATTACKING tactican.

Crimson wrote:
Jose even tried changing formation recently and that ended pretty badly, for those that remember the failed 433 with Lass.

I admit it's Jose's job to work this out but the problems I am seeing no coach in the world would have any luck with, the basic premise is right and you can see that in the games, but the players are failing at the very basic of tasks on the field. They can't even keep a basic structure on the field how would you expect to put any of that blame on Mourinho's tactics?

Our lack of form is evident, and it's affecting us at various level, and in past couple of weeks we have relied too much on Ronaldo to do the unexpected, although i disagree about that 433 which has never been a good formation under Mourinho.

Our game is predicated on the form our players are in, when everyone is firing, it's snappy, it's direct and we convert chances at a high rate. But as soon as one player is a little out of form, it's the whole mechanic that goes wrong. We have mostly relied on the individual capacity our players have to do the unexpected, players like Di Maria or Ronaldo most notably, which is great of course, but if those individuals are not performing as well, then we dont have a second recourse sometimes.

That's why i disagree with you when you say the blame cant be down to Mou's tactics. I have tried to argue in the past that our build up play is fairly weak, and i always have concerns whenever i see a team parking the bus on us, because those long drives Ronaldo or Di Maria are so use to make dont work as well. And we all know that they are not great to play in association as much as Benzema or Ozil for example.

You can blame Mourinho to some extent for creating such a vertical attack, and which doesnt play as well in association. We had little recourse, very little crossing, i saw Bayern FBs overlapping in the back of their wingers to cross, we hardly do that. You can blame Coentrao to some extent for not performing as well, but i cant help to see a trend i noticed since last year, and which is not improving. I think part of what you are seeing is a bit of a lack of imagination when it comes to moving the ball around to avoid the type of pressure zones opposing teams create. And they have all been defending us the same lately, surround Ozil, press the heck out of alonso if he comes anywhere near the midfield.

The Franchise wrote:
The logic is, Bayern were bursting through the middle because they had 3 v 2 in there and Di Maria would be better off than Ozil helping in that area.

But thats fail because all Ozil or Di Maria had to do was pick up Gustavo, who for the first 70 minutes barely went past the half way line. It didnt take anything special defensively to solve it other than having Ozil pick him up.

That leaves Alonso and Sami 2 v 2 with Bastian and Kroos.

So, yeah, swapping Di Maria and Ozil for defensive purposes is weak as an arguement.

And even if its true, it made the attack much worse off..which is the entire point of this arguement..he isnt a great ATTACKING tactican.

Ah yes, your point makes sense.

I know he is not great in attack tactics. You remember my thread where i had tried to discuss it with people, but most Mourinho fans will not acknowledge this.

Mou's a Counter Attack type, obvously. Yesterday was just though. Why drift Di Maria towards the center when you have a decent Kaka on the bench.

Plus, I think Mou should opt for Granero instead of Khedira more often. Khedira was important though. But the countering was just deplorable.

Lord Hispano wrote:Mou's a Counter Attack type, obvously. Yesterday was just though. Why drift Di Maria towards the center when you have a decent Kaka on the bench.

Plus, I think Mou should opt for Granero instead of Khedira more often. Khedira was important though. But the countering was just deplorable.

this is exactly why the Khedira-Alonso association is so flawed to me. 2 are top players, but it's a weak partnership as far as im concerned.

Alonso cant put the kind of defensive shift, running and covering Khedira provides, so as a lone defender he is weak, he needs support. But we all recognize that by Alonso being such a slowpoke, we need someone that can drive the ball forward and help support Ozil, which Khedira cant do. Yes Granero could do that, but he will leave Alonso incredibly exposed. How isnt that a flawed association? you usually have one that playmakes and drives forward, and another that covers.

I don't think yesterday was Mous best performance. Had we gotten the 1-1 then it would have been a good tactical game. We'd all been saying "when he wanted to close the shop the shop was closed" and so on. Because his subs clearly were defensive. He wanted the 1-1 with maybe a small hope of a counter goal.

But instead we decided to let Bayern do as they like and we were a bit unlucky not to get away with the draw (seeing as they scored in the very end).

I wish that we'd rather made the same subs as we did versus APOEL, Coentrao out, Marcelo in (Coentrao was on a yellow and therefore a liability) and Özil out, Kaká in.

And then we should have gone for their throat. But that's not the Mou way. The only time he take risks is when it's do or die. Which it wasn't.

He didn't make any errors but he didn't do anything brilliant either.

So that would mean Madrid would be better off playing the Possesion style with Granero/Sahin on which I don't see Mou approving of. This line up should have been used against Barca and not Bayern is all I'm really saying.

I strongly see us moving away from 4231 in the preseason, I think we would of done it last season if not for Sahin's injury.

But we will have to wait and see

Crimson wrote:I strongly see us moving away from 4231 in the preseason, I think we would of done it last season if not for Sahin's injury.

But we will have to wait and see

I and a couple of others naively think that way, but i dont even think Mourinho has the tactical chops to put it together.

433? Like classic Barca?

Who in the pivot? Alonso?

Mourinho's idea of a 433 is 2 DM's playing with Alonso (who in his eyes is a DM as well )

Probably right.

Chelsea 433 was often

--------Makelele
Thiago---------Lampard

Then Essien for Thiago.

Doesnt exact scream creativity.

Yup and in Madrid it is.....


------------Lass----------

Khedira----------Alonso

Thats even more defensive really.

Porto 4312 was

---------------Costinha---------

----Pedro Mendes--------Maniche

The Franchise wrote:433? Like classic Barca?

Who in the pivot? Alonso?

No not like Barca. Just Sahin instead of Khedira.

To be frank, even a midfield with Xabi-Khedira-Sahin is not ideal, because Sahin himself is not the kind to drive to the ball. He is a passing outlet from deep, His Movements are a lot better than Alonso of course, and he can move forward just by running into space and releasing the ball at the right time, but i fear he doesnt have the technical chops to fare well in those deep waters.