I think we should sell bale and buy sterling and make him rotate with isco and james for two positions.

Sterling is the closest to be the neymar type attacker, he has same body (stronger), pace and agility and trickery, good dribbling etc and most importantly good run making ability (hazard lacks that).

Although his finishing and end product and also decision make lacks, but he is 20 and will come good eventually, neymar also wasn't this good when he was 20.

Sterling also has experience playing in physically demanding league and top flight experience.

Sterling can't finish at all... and can't pass much either. He's Neymar until you get to the box.

More of a super poor mans Neymar until he gets in the box. Jese is a better player than the Englishman

the key point is potential, finishing and crossing and passing can be improved, but you can't teach, pace, strength, agility, striker instinct and to some extent technique. he has the right type of body for a winger, and a type of player who can go through 5/6 players.

I think being neymar before reaching the box is good enough for now until he improves.

As i said we need a player like neymar, hazard is more of an AM and he is good too but chelsea won't let him go.

There are no upcoming wingers who have high level potentials. Sterling is on the market and looking for club. We can snatch him now.

Worst case scenario, he will be better than bale . And besides we have isco, james and jese with sterling for 2/3 positions.

Jese is good and has the potential to be as good as reus. he is a terrific finisher and as good as neymar. but everything else is a level below and his extra bit of pace disappeared with the injury.


Sterling has the potential to be as good as neymar. Never the less we have other talents if he fails.

Sterling isn't anywhere near Neymar, be it current level or potential.

Yeah don't be fooled by Sterling. He's nowhere near as good as Neymar, current or potential like Valkyri said.

It's not just his finishing. His fundamentals are terrible. He has a horrible technique for his shot. I don't know if it's due to his feet being midget small or what but his shooting is just so bad. He needs to basically re-learn how to shoot.

He will never be a good finisher because of his shot. Maybe he's 20 and you can say he'll alter his shot technique as he ages but who knows.

Also he's nowhere near as good of a dribbler as Neymar. He can't beat a man one on one just on pure skill. It's his great physical attributes that usually lets him beat his man. He's very agile and his explosiveness is a gift very few have. But he's not a very good dribbler.

He does have good movement for a forward though, unlike Bale and Benz, he makes great runs all the time, but those are usually useless when he can't shoot for shit.

so Danilo takes the number 23 shirt.

that leaves isco with what number?

does this mean that he will be sold?

no he took just his favorite 22 as in malaga

Mr Nick09 wrote:no he took just his favorite 22 as in malaga

Yea, I saw the pictures of the number assignments in the dressing room.

isco - 22
cheryshev - 21
lucas vazquez - 18
nacho - 6

Nacho with 6? big number for someone who is hardly going to play.

RealGunner wrote:Nacho with 6? big number for someone who is hardly going to play.

Nacho is a legend

The 21 is reserved for Verratti

Any one interested in a good tactical read will enjoy this Article by a UEFA Journalist, it is wonderfully written. Yes,it is about how Madrid's tactical deficiencies can be masked by Isco.

http://www.haugstadfootball.net/2014/11/03/the-importance-of-isco/

Great article!

What I still don't understand to this day is why Carlo considered that hell of a team a back-up to when one of BBC gets injured. We played the best football in Europe last year using that formation and those players. We scored goals left, right and center. We destroyed Barça, breezed through Liverpool and we simply looked unstoppable and unpredictable.

It just beats me as a fan why oh why the higher-ups don't stop for a second to think what's really best for the team: play a quarter of a billion frontline and be inefficient, or play a demon of a midfield and destroy the living crap out of whoever gets in our way.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Great article!

What I still don't understand to this day is why Carlo considered that hell of a team a back-up to when one of BBC gets injured. We played the best football in Europe last year using that formation and those players. We scored goals left, right and center. We destroyed Barça, breezed through Liverpool and we simply looked unstoppable and unpredictable.

It just beats me as a fan why oh why the higher-ups don't stop for a second to think what's really best for the team: play a quarter of a billion frontline and be inefficient, or play a demon of a midfield and destroy the living crap out of whoever gets in our way.

Because Perez. Anyone with eyes can see that both James and Isco are better footballers than Bale

That's the point. Managers more than anybody else should know that their days at the Bernabeu are numbered from the moment they sign the contract; regardless of how well they do. Ultimately, they will be sacked.

So can't the new manager for the love of god look at his predecessors and think "hey, they listened and still got fired so maybe I should do what I really want to do since I'm going to be fired anyway"

I really hate cowards and people who would do anything to preserve their jobs. Have some dignity dammit...

dude you are usually a great poster but the comments you make lately just make me scratch my head

So because we all know we will die at some point we should all jump off flying planes, go to war, pretty much live recklessly to our heart content because we are dying anyway?

that's your logic?

you talk about dignity? the only cowardice in this thread is the disguised attacks on Benitez that you masquerade by some schpill about how he is supposed to bench the president most prized signings.

Grow some balls and say you dont like Benitez, instead of wasting our times with some BS speech about how our manager needs dignity or courage. you grow some first lol.

You are a smart enough poster to know that HE CAN'T. we ALL know he can't. Or at the very least, it will happen very late in CL when his back will be against the wall.

Benitez playing all the superstars just to make Perez happy is nothing but cowardice, how ever you want to sugarcoat it Nick.

Let's not exaggerate, Perez isn't going to sack him midway into season just because he isn't playing a primadonna ( except probably CR).

He will get exactly one season. He can play the all offense line up like in last clasico and get sacked at end of season.

Or he can bench one of them and win a trophy and save his job. There isn't much to debate about this.

i did not see you calling Carlo a coward last season when he was doing the same, did you?

I dont care about Benitez, dont think this is me trying to defend him or what not. He will get sacked, let's be very clear. But you are blaming him for things he cant control.

I don't understand why would I need to 'grow some balls' to say that I don't rate Rafa? I said it before, multiple times even. But I'm not blindly hating on him. If he wins a major trophy this year, and I hope with every fiber of my being that he will, I'll be the first to acknowledge that.

Your analogy death/sack is unsound and flawed to say the least, for there's more at stake in the former than the latter. It doesn't stand, I'm sorry.

Sometimes, things are simpler than you might think. Before putting pen to paper, lay down the law like Klopp did with Liverpool. Nobody gets to tell him who to pick or who to drop and he's the only one in charge of signings.

If somebody tells you who to pick, threaten to resign if it ever occurs again and make sure to keep your word. That's how a proud manager operates.

So please don't tell me that he can't. Of course he can. There's always something he can do. But some people are more into prestige than principles.

Your analogy Real Madrid/Liverpool is unsound and flawed to say the least, for there's more at stake in the former than the latter. It doesn't stand, I'm sorry.

you said it best

you can't just bench a 70 mil or a 100 mil player, because its make the club and the prez look like a joke, we all know this, so complaining and calling rafa a coward for that, is nonsense and just shows the usual lack of understanding about footy, just be happy with the fact that rafa tries to mix things up in different ways than spamming the same XI for a season.

Well, you can if you win and do so while playing attractively so.

Even if Perez has to begrudgingly give you another season, win the league and CL and he'll have no other real option. And yes, I'm well aware that Del Bosque didn't survive in this very situation, but that wasn't about him not playing Perez's new toy.

It's stupid. You can definitely bench superstar if you are winning with out them.

Heck you can definitely bench them if playing them is making your team loose game after game which is basically us.

Isco's funny reaction to Kroos being benched