Isco

Same Ronaldo who doesn't like being played at cf wanted to switch to cf???

So when jese came on we played with no cf?? because I seem to recall jese only playing LW and nothing else. He came on for Ronaldo not cms. Casemiro came on for Modric

Now I know Isco isn't bigoted but if he was any smarter he'd know he can't hold on to the ball for an eternity and play whatever position fits him best on the night

@josh, it is very evident he is trying to find minutes for him in whatever position. But I am not happy he plays him over a more capable CF. He is basically telling Morata that he isn't needed which he is. Our cms need resting sometimes, wouldn't that be a better position to get minutes in when we are 3-0 up late in a game rather than false 9, while in the process running our midfielders to the ground?

Indeed Isco would have been better suited to city but that would mean no Silva, because Silva is beyond awful on the right and imo Silva> Isvo

isco gonna get screwed come next season anyway, so it doesn't matter where he plays now, he won't establish himself, come summer more midfielder and strikers

What does ronaldo doesnt like being played CF has to do with yesterdays specific game? Ronaldo switched to CF alot last game with out any doubt. Ronaldo actually played all front three positions last game if i remember.

I agree with the you about the false 9 BS btw, but Morata was never preferred by Carlo, every time he subbed out Benz in an important game it was Jese taking his spot not Morata. Seems like our tactics is kind of not suited to Morata. But that doesnt mean Carlo has to play Isco at false 9 ahead of Morata.

Morata is needed since he is a different striker from Benzema.

Carlo has been really reluctant to take out Benz when we are losing. I understand that too, because that's usually when we play more freely and so when Benz actually gets touches. Isco would be better in that situation too.

Carlo probably wants to have a specific plan...not just throw on all the strikers. You want to have players on the pitch that amplify each other.

Isco Bale and Benz will work well together as an attacking unit chasing a game.

@Hala Silva has played most of his career in the centre or on the right. He'd play where Nasri usually plays.

Nasri tracks back and defends, which is critical with Clichy/Kolarov playing on his side. Pelle plays Nasri or Navas at all times because Silva is a horrible, horrible defender.... in fact, he plays both and sits Silva when he's worried defensively.

Nasri was having a fantastic year before his injury and you all know how much I dislike Nasri...

Isco tacks back and defends better. I seen him do it. He expends more injury than Nasri, so he'd play less, but yeah.

Look I really hate to be rude because I really like you sam and adit...

But your biases are incredibly delusional and ridiculous. First of all sam, if you are suggesting isco take CR's spot on the left wing, thats absolutely retarded. Isco can't do good in our attacking unit because he takes too many touches and would slow down our counter attacks

Second of all his dribbling and close control are good? Sure they are. So are brahimis, gervinhos, and a bunch of no name players. Ball ability does not make a good player. Your brain is about 80% of it.. Isco is overrated beyond belief and it has alot to do with his young age and nationality.

At the end of the day jese is a much better player and so is morata, benz, bale, and pretty much anyone we have. isco has absolutely zero place on a real madrid squad. As an AM he offers zero playmaking ability and is not efficient with the ball. Coming from deep, he takes more touches then even CR and slows down the play completely. Add to the fact he is a school boy tactically and useless defensively besides his work rate (seriously, its like watching fabregas defend.. just useless pressuring) and you have a player who shouldn't be playing for us.

It takes alot more then skills to be a good player.. why do you think kovacic for instance is such an average player, despite being even better then isco at dribbling and control?

In the end he's gonna leave in the summer and I'm sure carlo would agree with this, because he isn't playing and he wont be anytime soon.

Le Samourai wrote:@Hala Silva has played most of his career in the centre or on the right. He'd play where Nasri usually plays.

hmm. Silva has been awful there this season when he and Nasri played at the same time. Silva has the same problem as Ozil. You wouldn't think City are playing a wide(inverted) player whenever he plays because he gets sucked into the middle and stays there all the time. I think it would take away alot of his playmaking ability if you played him on the right. a 4-2-3-1 could work with those two but they would need a good dm in that case which they haven't

Isco is horrible defensively... main reason Carlo benched him tbh. At the start of the season, our midfield was so bad defensively that we couldn't keep going... so Carlo replaced the weakest link.

You can't play on an elite team these days without playing decent defense unless you're the absolute superstar or the CF (or both lol). It's not possible. You need 8 players the defend actively at a minimum because the basic shape of a defense is two lines of 4.

Agreed. Modern football is much faster paced then before.. you need to be a good defender to play. Even player like xavi and xabi are great defensively compared to the cms of the 80's and 70's

First thing is he needs to find one position to play, not 3/4.

His best 2 positions would be CM or out wide in our current formation. He doesn't need to be elite defensively to play CM in a 4-3-3. The only problem is our pressing isn't good enough yet to play Isco as a LCM. Barca have Iniesta and Xavi in the middle and they aren't defensive experts, but the pressing and possession meant they didn't need any experts.

If he is to start now, it would be on the right. However Jese/Bale are better suited there.

isco is a very overrated player only thing his fans can go on about his is dribbling and control, i have seen a lot of his youtube vids guess what?mainly about dribling and contol, hardly any highlights of his vision and passing or being tactically sound, next iniesta.....nope .

I probably imagined what he did at Malaga for the past two years....or what he does when he plays with Spain. All of you saying we should buy him in the summer, now the complete U turn. I said we shouldn't, because I suspected exactly this would happen. I had a little more hope, because I thought we'd be playing a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-2-2-2, but that dissipated quickly.

No point in arguing with idiots who have never watched guys play, I've learned my lesson. I have complete confidence in this kid, he has fantastic work ethic, humility and talent and if he does indeed leave, in about two years team you same fools will be questioning why we sold him.

With Malaga, he was the superstar and was allowed to not defend and to avoid the dirty work... for Madrid, he's not the superstar nor will he ever be as long as CR7 is here and he doesn't play CF.  With CR7 being the second striker on the wing and the fact that we play a CF, Isco has to do his total work.

That's the difference.

I also feel that Carlo is playing him as a false 9 because the CF position is the only other position other than CR7 that's not needed to maintain defensive shape.

To me, that's the biggest issue with Isco and the reason he's not playing:  He has to play good enough defense to play in the midfield.  The second reason is that he doesn't stay in his area  and floats around.

Being a young superstar and being given superstar freedom is often not a good thing... i can name a lot of young phenoms that struggled once they went to a top team.  Lucas Moura is having the same issues with PSG after being the goat on his Sao Paolo team...  kids need to learn the fundamentals again.

Don't talk about Malaga, you clearly did not watch them frequently last season.

They were the second best defensive unit in La Liga last year and that was with Camacho being the only defensively oriented midfielder on the pitch half the time. At Malaga he played two positions, in the centre and on the left. When in the centre, he defended less. When on the wing he defended more. At both positions he defended much more than anyone currently in our forward line.

You just split one things into two things, don't know why, but yeah.The problem with him defensively at the moment, is he leaves his zone, because that's just what he is. He looks to push up the pitch. That's how you want to play ideally, that's how we'll be playing if this team ever reaches where I want it to. However, at the moment, that ain't really sustainable..and with only Marcelo behind him, it's just plain stupid. People lose the ball too easily, people give it away, there is very little interplay around the area. Just how it is. That's natural, I've seen us try to play too quick this year and look like idiots, it's not Carlo's problem.

We don't owe Isco anything, we're looking to win. But this shit is annoying.

Isco tracks back very good, in which game did he stand around like CR,Ozil,Benzema etc? .. He defends just fine for an attacking midfielder.

I also shares the same concern as Le Sam, in 3 years time we will be wondering why did we ever let this guy go..He is 21 after all and new to the team and playing in not his favorite position..some of the stars we brought took more than 2 years to establish themselves as starters so i see no need to sell this guy now.

That the thing Josh... being a a defender outside the core shape (the core of a defense is 4+4) is completely different. As a striker, your only responsibility is to get in the way as much as possible and offer token pressure on the CBs to keep them honest and uncomfortabel. That's it. Isco did that fine with Malaga.

But at Madrid, the 2 forwards that play the roles outside of the core 4+4 are CR7 and Benz. Everyone else has very specific, active and important defensive responsibilities. Heck, Bale is even doing the work because he has to.... kudos to him since he didn't need to do it at the Spurs.

In short, Isco can't play instinctively first. That's not his role here. He has to play tactically first and then allow his instincts to come in at Madrid.... right now, he lacks that discipline. I hope he gets it together... but it won't happen this season.

Personally, i think he needs to go to a team where he can be one of the 2 forwards. My personal choice would be PSG since Cavani defends and they can afford to let Isco roam. City.... not so much with Aguero and Negredo. Chelsea? Hazard and the CF. Arsenal have Ozil and the CF.

When you think about it, if he wants to be part of an elite team, he really needs to make that transition.

Le Samourai wrote:I probably imagined what he did at Malaga for the past two years....or what he does when he plays with Spain. All of you saying we should buy him in the summer, now the complete U turn. I said we shouldn't, because I suspected exactly this would happen. I had a little more hope, because I thought we'd be playing a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-2-2-2, but that dissipated quickly.

No point in arguing with idiots who have never watched guys play, I've learned my lesson. I have complete confidence in this kid, he has fantastic work ethic, humility and talent and if he does indeed leave, in about two years team you same fools will be questioning why we sold him.

You right.. you did imagine what he did with malaga.. because he was the same player but he was given acres of freedom and no defensive responsiblities.. The whole team was built around him for god sake

You're right, there is no point in arguing with idiots, which is why I'm done arguing with you

Some of you have seriously never played footy in your life.. there are plenty of skillers and fancy players in real life and sports can tell you that too.. but dribbling with no damn end product or slowing down the play oversets those points...

Your abstractions don't really fit into my conception of football. What Sports is saying is correct, for the most part. We have a subtle disagreement over the nature of defence, another subtle disagreement over whether or not Carlo wants Isco in the squad (Maybe) Other than that...our views mostly align here.

Now, you're talking about stuff you know nothing about.

No defensive responsibility? That's either correct or false. There were circumstances where he had incredible defensive responsibility, in key games, when Elieseu was out and he had to play on the left, when Joaquin was the one with the attacking freedom and not him, when Pelle played both Saviola and Santa-Cruz. Some of those situations overlap, but, the point is, he did his defensive job and is a better defensive player than all three of our forwards. Period.

Complete attacking freedom? Again utter drivel. You're mistake attacking freedom for having a suitable role. He was encouraged to attack defences committed, both because it's his game and because it helped the flow of the team. He drew in defences, created space for wingers like Joaquin and Eliseu, and when they found that space he passed to them. It was a very structured attack.

Those guys did an admirable job too, because they too stuck to their zones and committed defenders. That's not going to happen here, even if he were to be playing his favoured position. But there were times whee Joaquin roamed, there were times where Portillo drove the play, just because you heard Isco's name the most doesn't mean he did whatever he wanted.

You always go back to this foolishness. I've played football most of my life, watched it too, it adds nothing to the conversation, makes no sense. Dribbling with no end product hinders the play, a toddler in Italy who has never could probably tell me that. Are you saying Isco has no end product? Because that's plain wrong on the whole, although recently, in the 15 or so minutes he's been getting, he's been piss poor.

@Sports.

You see, I think we're talking about different things. The nature of City is attack, it's quick, in your words, instinctive. Holes open up, it's a natural consequence. But what assuages that is not Nasri tracking back, I have not noticed him doing a particularly great job, but, whatever. They press high, everyone, try to stop the ball or stall, if the ball gets through they are exposed...and they've lived with that all year.

Us is different. Our defence as you say is is structured with the midfield nearer the defence and the forwards only pushing up. It's just a different approach, the better approach for us right now. But as the team gets better in attack, faster, and begins to move the ball more freely, I feel as though we will have to transition toward a more aggressive high press, because people will end up leaving their zones.

That's a while away though, I don't even know if Carlo will go for that. Remains to be seen.

You don't watch City obviously... Nasri tracks back like a madman this year.  He's playing his role.  So does Navas.  Reason Nasri got benched last year was that he wasn't doing his defensive job... far different story this year.  He covers his fullback and keeps shape.

City definitely have a defined shape. Very defined. That's why Silva struggles in fact since he no longer has that freedom. You can't play elite footy unless you have a disciplined shape... in fact, Pelle needs to be even more disciplined with his players and tactics because he gets tooled against the top sides regularly.

I watch City, constantly, and see Navas doing that. I see Nasri tacking back occasionally, but I also see most of their goals coming down his side on the counter. Which is also fairly natural as Kolarov and Clichy are weaker than Zabaleta.

There's a bunch of interchanging, people move across the pitch, Fernandinhio leaves his lock, Toure almost never actually gets in it. The shape I assume you're talking about is the attacking structure...how they use the width, how the AM's tuck inside and the fullbacks run outside.

Whereas Nasri stays on the left Isco will make a run into the center. From my experience with Malaga, what happens then is he asks another midfielder who is less functional there (Silva, Portillo) to occupy the space on the left, to stem the counter.

Once they've done that, or If they do that I should say, Isco could get back into his spot and do his defensive job effectively. If they don't, so many players are committed to attack that it's just hit and miss. You pray the defence stops it but it's a strain.

They dished out more than they got against good teams, but that's not because of their defense, so yea, he needs to be stricter there.

Nasri has to stay on the left... you have two strikers playing for City and Yaya making dives in from the midfield.  You can't have another player coming in.  Not only does it mess things up by making distances too close, it also brings in another defender... waaaaaaaaaaay too many defenders in one spot.

It's also close to impossible to recover defensively well if you're going from the wing to the center.  Modern play is far too quick and players far too fast.

Football is a lot about gap control and pitch coverage both on attack and defense. You want to spin the best web possible depending on your style of play. In you break one of the link in the web, the web is broken. Isco breaks our shape really badly both on attack and defense... we're talking Carlo here and Italian tactics. It's all about discipline.

sometimes you gotta wonder if we are all watching the same games at times, just because some of you want isco to succeed so badly, its like some of you go blind when he plays, right now at madrid he is a reserve, no matter how some try to sugar coat it he is simply not good enough,

save the magic ball control chit chat, its mean bleep all to carlo, passing di maria level, vision below average, and tactically headless, again isco won't be the first so called star player to go to a top team and look lost, maybe its time to admit that he is just not as good as everybody thought and stop stuffing crap down people throat.

To be honest his time in malaga means fk all to me. Players can be made to look good or bad and in iscos case he looked bad in malaga but has not impressed me one bit here.

In madrid hes been piss poor and I might have no mercy when I criticize him but he clearly isn't playing well.

he's better defensively then ronaldo and benzema.. which is not much of an achievement. to be a cm you better be better then those two at defense..

And yeah, I'm saying isco has no end product.. because it is what it is.. he has zero vision and holds on too the ball too long, killing potential attacks and the pace of the game.