Yeh, unfortunately Benzema's injured.

Maybe Callejon on.

Ozil.

2-2 FT, what a game, unbelievable stuff.

OOOOOZIIIL YAAAAAS

Essien was such a beast. MOTM for me, what a performance!!! Had he started we would've won.

callejon came on and competed changed the game. higuain better be injured cause if that was an injury free first half he is a joke.

essien showed that we need that presence in the midfield. Khedira.

Modric was passing the ball sideways, essien came on and pushed forward, passed the ball well and even beat players. plus he helped the back four and gave alonso space

ramos was the one at fault for the goal he needed to cover varane when he challenged lewandowski for the header. ramos was no where near. poor.

higuain man he had a load of through balls from ozil and ronaldo. Im starting to question him.

callejon could cud take his place for me

The amount of people who understand little to nothing about tactics on this board is astonishing

Crimson wrote:The amount of people who understand little to nothing about tactics on this board is astonishing

get off ur high horse. ppl have a right to their opinion.

if you want to defend higuain go ahead.

everyone saw his performance. terrible.

Crimson wrote:The amount of people who understand little to nothing about tactics on this board is astonishing

And your a genius... I would appreciate if you care to put your tactical genius brain at work to write some thing meaningful than belittle fellow users.

I missed the game, can anybody give me some insight as to what happened? Did both teams deserve a draw? Who played well etc.

Arbeloa was very lax on his man for both goals in my opinion , if you look at the point Grossekrutz gets behind the defense on the 2nd goal he's the furthest defender back but he kind of malingers and lets Goetze walk into a perfect goal scoring position.

When he realizes the cross is about to come in he just rushes into the box without any real plan and ends up putting it past Casillas.

Callejon was brilliant. In my opinion whenever management comes to their senses and chooses a forward (provided Ronaldo is staying) he's the backup striker. He's literally the perfect player for that type of role with us.

Alonso for me was man of the match, he completely dominated the 2nd half , defensively and offensively. There are situations where he simply isn't going to be a factor defensively and both goals where the ball is quickly advanced he's not going to be a huge factor.

But his anticipation and positioning through the middle was excellent and his distribution especially with us chasing the game was equally impressive.

Ozil was decisive, a fantastic free kick (thank god he got to take it) and an excellent cross. He created a couple half chances as well so an endearing performance all around.

We missed a couple players who are more comfortable against set defenses today , particularly Marcelo and Benz...and we missed Khedira though I feel less so than the other two. We dominated possession throughout, so there was less time for him to press high. Dortmunds midfielders did not really distribute the ball so his impact would have been slightly reduced.

Anyway, not worried. we didn't have everyone today, I don't think I can expect the players to overcome the burden of Mourinhio every day of the week, especially against as well drilled a team as Dortmund.

Swagg wrote:I missed the game, can anybody give me some insight as to what happened? Did both teams deserve a draw? Who played well etc.

Only watched parts of the first half and that was when our defense was getting destroyed by BVB..

2nd Half : All Real Madrid. Chances, Possession everything. BVB did well to defend and the keeper saved a point blank shot from CR.

@Crim
Common man.

Ok for those that do not understand basic tactics, this is for you.

Watching the first half it was easy to see that our left hand side was being targeted and overwhelmed time and time again often 3 v1 or 3 v 2 in attack from the right hand side of Dortmund.

Ronaldo would not track back at all often leaving Arbeloa well exposed, that does not excuse his poor performance however, but playing on the left for the first in a very long time would of been very challenging considering the circumstances.

Now the problem was up front as well Higuain did his hammy at about the 25min mark (Higuain also ruled out for Levante according to Mou's presser) so we had no lateral movement up front, that being said Ronaldo was fairly poor in the first half anyway.

The left sided attack wasn't posing too much of a problem though they did get through once or twice due to the fact Modric was providing no ball cover at all.

At the start of the second half we saw Callejon come on for Higuain and Essien for Modric what this did was two fold, Essien provided cover at the back while also ball protecting on the right hand side of the pitch for Madrid, this allowed Alonso, Callejon and Di Maria to effectively block the movement in attack on the left (Dortmunds troublesome right sided attack), that is why we started to dominate so much, Ronaldo moved more centrally more of a floating CF role and we saw much more lateral movement from Di Maria and Callejon coming forward from our right, this also helped press back the main attack of Dortmund.

We really suffered in the first half with no real cover and no one tracking back on our left. That is also why we were able to take of Arbeloa and virtually have no issues because the tactic was working so well.

I'd love to draw pretty diagrams to be able to explain it better but I can't be fruited.

@ crimson

how is what you said different from what other ppl are saying? apart from it being a whole page long?

essien is a boss, callejon was brilliant and the defence was poor in the first half; is pretty much what you are saying in your long autopsy of the game.

basically starting essien & callejon from the beggining would have ment a probable win for us? or at least we would not concede two goals.
mou trusted hig and -cr7 no matter the risks from that flank- given also arbeloa was the one defending there

it went like a domino, our poor performance combined with the empty spaces behind concluded a bad first half

mou should have started essien but i still get were he was coming from, it didnt work out but it could

Ninis wrote:basically starting essien & callejon from the beggining would have ment a probable win for us? or at least we would not concede two goals.
mou trusted hig and -cr7 no matter the risks from that flank- given also arbeloa was the one defending there

it went like a domino, our poor performance combined with the empty spaces behind concluded a bad first half

mou should have started essien but i still get were he was coming from, it didnt work out but it could

Ronaldo should never have started on the left as well though he never or very rarely tracks back and Dortmunds attacks are very predictable they almost always attack from that side and usually in numbers in a well played counter attack more often than not led by Reus.

Not sure why we tried to play the way we did, made no sense really.

Ronaldo was always going to start on the left. I've come to the sad realization that he plays wherever he wants to play whenever he wants to play there, no point in analyzing that aspect of our tactics.

We tried to play the way we did because it's our go to plan after a loss especially in cup games.

Mourinhio initially goes out conservatively against the grain of the team and we become slightly lethargic and ineffective. After a disappointing result he sacrifices balance for creativity because he feels the need to get a win and on most occasions it works because of the pure attacking talent we have to offer. It didn't today because there were key injuries and as you detailed, key weaknesses which Dormund exploited who were brilliantly organized throughout.

Le Samourai wrote:Arbeloa was very lax on his man for both goals in my opinion , if you look at the point Grossekrutz gets behind the defense on the 2nd goal he's the furthest defender back but he kind of malingers and lets Goetze walk into a perfect goal scoring position.

When he realizes the cross is about to come in he just rushes into the box without any real plan and ends up putting it past Casillas.

Callejon was brilliant. In my opinion whenever management comes to their senses and chooses a forward (provided Ronaldo is staying) he's the backup striker. He's literally the perfect player for that type of role with us.

Alonso for me was man of the match, he completely dominated the 2nd half , defensively and offensively. There are situations where he simply isn't going to be a factor defensively and both goals where the ball is quickly advanced he's not going to be a huge factor.

But his anticipation and positioning through the middle was excellent and his distribution especially with us chasing the game was equally impressive.

Ozil was decisive, a fantastic free kick (thank god he got to take it) and an excellent cross. He created a couple half chances as well so an endearing performance all around.

We missed a couple players who are more comfortable against set defenses today , particularly Marcelo and Benz...and we missed Khedira though I feel less so than the other two. We dominated possession throughout, so there was less time for him to press high. Dortmunds midfielders did not really distribute the ball so his impact would have been slightly reduced.

Anyway, not worried. we didn't have everyone today, I don't think I can expect the players to overcome the burden of Mourinhio every day of the week, especially against as well drilled a team as Dortmund.

exactly my thoughts

though i do need to vent a bit on a topic you didnt touch on. everything you said was on point but i just have 1 thing that kept bugging at me

di maria.

this guy is ruining our attack by not being able to keep the ball. criticize ozil all you want for his lack of form but even at his worst he doesnt have the ABISMAL pass completion ratio OR shot on goal ratio. its ridiculous how a player cant make a 5 yard pass, meanwhile blasting shot after shot into the stands yet he is starting for us.

arbeloa also needs to pick up his pace or else he will continue to hurt us.

My take on the game, Dortmund are getting far too much praise than they deserve, the created next to nothing in the second half and could easily have conceeded three or four goals.

They were impressive with their pressing game in the first half which limited Madrid's ability to attack but as the game wore on Madrid got better. Dortmund set out to counter, their two goals were very similar, long ball to Striker, knock down, attacking midfielder takes possession, goal, wash, rinse and repeat

Mourinho's subs all had a wonderful game, Kaka was motivated and was thickly involved in a counter-attack which ended in Ronaldo's shot being save at close range by the Dortmund's keeper foot.

Essien and Callejon are both in contention for Man of the Match, I think Callejon's goal should have stood, even then he could still have had a couple more.

Varane was superb as usual with some brilliant interceptions, Pepe scored and looked solid, not very impressed with Arbeloa, Ramos and Casillas. Casillas should have gotten a stronger hand to Reus's shot and should have closed down Gotze earlier. We need the Casillas of last season back, he would have saved at least one of the two chances.

I don't blame him.

I'm convinced if you give Di Maria a forward passing option his ability to keep the ball will dramatically increase.

An extra forward passing option who is so brilliant bombing down the flank that defenses actually need to focus on him would give him the spacing hen needs.

He is reckless , but he has the most vision on our team by a mile and a half, and if you give him that extra inverted passing option he'll become less predictable and he will feel more comfortable making safer shorter passer.

While Mou is here the play is going to run through the wings and I think he has the best chance to take the next step in his career , once we put him in the right environment to succeed.

he is second to last in pass percentage on our team.

notable players above him. albiol. nacho. pepe. kaka. lass (on loan)

i mean pick from anyone, the only player with a worse pass record than him is morata and morata has only had 1 sub appearance.

Ronaldo always plays on the left. If he's on the left against Barcelona then why would he start on the right against BVB?

We played like shit. We can't aspire to win La Decima playing like we did

i forgot to mention varane who was MOTM for me. was an absolute beast. was the reason we were able to create the first goal and made a handful of vital tackles along with his general high quality of play.

not to mention he has the highest percent pass completion on our team at 91% this is the solution to our RB problems. ramos will just have to play RB because varane has to be in our lineup- has made little to no errors as his time filling in.

vanDEEZ wrote:i forgot to mention varane who was MOTM for me. was an absolute beast. was the reason we were able to create the first goal and made a handful of vital tackles along with his general high quality of play.

not to mention he has the highest percent pass completion on our team at 91% this is the solution to our RB problems. ramos will just have to play RB because varane has to be in our lineup- has made little to no errors as his time filling in.

Isnt that ironic? Isnt that sad? That the MOTM is a defender? The man who creates, is a CB? Doesnt that tell you anything? Doesnt that give us a clue of what's going on?

Di Maria is headless. with this type of play he must be benched.

Di maria is headless indeed; which makes him "The Idiot of Madrid"

Its baffling how some fans here refuse to see accept this fact