Illarramendi

Calma pls. It took Alonso & Modric a year before they settled in the midfield.

He scored a goal, touched the ball alot and had a pass accuracy of 90% but please, wat direction did dose passes go, side ways, backwards and a few forward yet safe passes.
Our 4-3-3 flat formation means dat we av to depend on benzema dropping back or one of d three midfielders taking the responsibility of driving forward to make something happen...
Alonso cant and shudnt do that cos he is more important sitting bak and covering dan moving forward..Di maria handles dat task once in a while and wen he doesnt, modric does.
With Illara, a less experienced version of Alonso, we had two people sitting bak and had to depend on di maria acting as d link between d midfield and attack.
Even tho he does dat to good effect at times, he is not d typical man for ur job.
Again, with Illara, a less experienced alonso,we had almost zero link to d attack.all i saw were d defenders and midfielders passing to demselves, with no real penetration.As illarra took the modric role, he was meant to provide dat but he kept passing it bak and sideways.
Unsurprisingly, our first goal dint come from our team work but a set piece dat got rebounded and deflected.
Second goal came from a set piece dat fell to alonso's leg and den a pass to bale and a goal borne out of individualism and not team work.
The third goal, we can say it had a hint of team work to it but it was a counter attack, d much maligned style we are hoping not to depend on.

So all in all, illarra doesnt offer anything special if all he has shown dis season is what he has to offer.
Nothing special, nothing to make him indespensable, nothing to miss wen he isnt playing.
He is at best a cover up if he doesnt up his game and we would av been prudent to dig into the castilla/La fabrica for a no-cost cover up who wud offer the same.we av alot of dem dere, jose rodriguez, alex fernandez and some odas...
Verdict: Average player, cant improve d team, can only maintain it

God.

I dd nt udtd da pst you fingers broken or something

About the only thing I understood from that post was that Illarramendi can only pass sideways and backwards. He is a CDM for a reason. No point having more expectations from him than he is capable of. Modric is a CM I would be worried if he wasn't able to create

Illarramendi defends greatly. Alot better than Alonso but don't think he can replace him just yet

Fantastic player, really happy we signed him.

He's done fine. Also yeh, he isn't a B2B or anything. Like Alonso he's a bit limited in terms of what he can offer all around the pitch, so his best position is definitely what Alonso's position is currently.

The thing is he is a total chicken in passing, reminds me of khedira in that department.

Casemiro shows tons of more potential in passing, long and short.

SuperMAG wrote:The thing is he is a total chicken in passing, reminds me of khedira in that department.

.

wat

I think he's excellent. Can't take someone who doesn't rate him well seriously.

Great long term purchase for us and he's only going to continue to learn from Alonso over the next couple years.

Between Modric, Alonso, Illa, Khedira and Casemiro, I'm extremely happy with our midfield.

shadexticos wrote:He scored a goal, touched the ball alot and had a pass accuracy of 90% but please, wat direction did dose passes go, side ways, backwards and a few forward yet safe passes.
Our 4-3-3 flat formation means dat we av to depend on benzema dropping back or one of d three midfielders taking the responsibility of driving forward to make something happen...
Alonso cant and shudnt do that cos he is more important sitting bak and covering dan moving forward..Di maria handles dat task once in a while and wen he doesnt, modric does.
With Illara, a less experienced version of Alonso, we had two people sitting bak and had to depend on di maria acting as d link between d midfield and attack.
Even tho he does dat to good effect at times, he is not d typical man for ur job.
Again, with Illara, a less experienced alonso,we had almost zero link to d attack.all i saw were d defenders and midfielders passing to demselves, with no real penetration.As illarra took the modric role, he was meant to provide dat but he kept passing it bak and sideways.
Unsurprisingly, our first goal dint come from our team work but a set piece dat got rebounded and deflected.
Second goal came from a set piece dat fell to alonso's leg and den a pass to bale and a goal borne out of individualism and not team work.
The third goal, we can say it had a hint of team work to it but it was a counter attack, d much maligned style we are hoping not to depend on.

So all in all, illarra doesnt offer anything special if all he has shown dis season is what he has to offer.
Nothing special, nothing to make him indespensable, nothing to miss wen he isnt playing.
He is at best a cover up if he doesnt up his game and we would av been prudent to dig into the castilla/La fabrica for a no-cost cover up who wud offer the same.we av alot of dem dere, jose rodriguez, alex fernandez and some odas...
Verdict: Average player, cant improve d team, can only maintain it

You type like a douche bag

to those people who want illara to show flash on the ball, give it a rest, not every player on a team can and should be flashy. illara is a central/defensive mid (more of a defensive mid) and thus his job is to keep things safe as well as provide cover for the defense....all that talk of "he only passes sideways and backwards" reminds me of the same crap florentino perez was blurting out when he foolishly let makelele go to bring in becks...and we all know how that turned out....that said, illara is settling in, he isn't the finished product just yet, but he hasn't been terrible. his football iq is solid and i rate him highly, he is developing well and steadily if you ask me... (i thought his transfer fee was too much but that's another conversation)

Some of you guys seem to rate him a lot higher than I do. I've never been a huge fan of his. He's definitely a good player, but I don't understand how or where some of you guys see this extraordinary potential in him. He did well against a lacklustre Elche. It was a deserved man of the match performance, and I applaud him for working his socks off, but I don't see him developing into a permanent Xabi Alonso replacement. Of course, I'd love to be wrong about this, but I've yet to be convinced that he's good enough for our manager to consider using him over Alonso, against the sides that actually matter. Will he develop into a player that we can rely on against the heavyweights of the future? I don't see it. He's certainly younger and more mobile than Xabi, and I'm sure he's got qualities that Xabi's always been lacking, but it's the end-product that counts.

Illarra has been decent so far when called upon. It's not easy trying to settle in a midfield that was fragmented to begin with but he is having an easier time than his fellow Spaniard Isco.

Not exactly the midfielder I wanted in the summer, but I'm willing to wait for him to grow into his role. Modric is doing so well that I'm pretty much prepared to give up on my idealized notion of midfield for whatever Carlo is building.

@Magic spray and hala madrid. Wow! Now am feeling like a douche bag with my post.
Maybe i should re-type that, but i honestly cant see what is so difficult in picking the points.
This is not some spelling bee or essay competition where complete obedience to all the grammatical rules matter.

For me, Xabi remains the most important guy on our team. I see some similarities, but I think it's pretty plain to see that whatever makes Xabi the giant he is on the pitch is a quality Illara does not yet possess.

he lacks Xabi's charisma

ILLARA scored a deflected goal and was heavily involved in the game.
Statistics also show that he had a pass accuracy of 90% in the match against Elche.
Bravo! 90% is a percentage only bettered by Barcelona players, a team whose philosophy is built around passing precision.
It would have been more enlightening to shed light on the nature and direction of those passes before we start singing his praises.
I watched the match from the first whistle to the last and i noticed that majority of those passes were either sideways or backwards, with a few safe forward passes.

From the beginning of the 2013/2014 season up until December 2013, Ancelotti ensured that his favorite song 'balance' sunk into the heads of all the players, madridista, board members and everyone with the slightest link to Real Madrid.
He cried so much for balance in a team with an odd and ill-assembled mixture of tremenduously talented players.
He could come up with 5 different winning line-ups, but not all of them could sing his favorite song.
In December, he finally stuck to a flat 4-3-3 formation comprising of 3 extremely energetic central midfielders.

The formation was designed in such a way as to ensure that little to no gap would be left in the midfield in the event the team loses the ball in attack.
This set up means that only 1 of the 3 central defenders has the license to drive forward at any point in time, in order to act as the link between the midfield and the attack, while the other two sit back to protect the defenders.
The player tasked with such responsibility has to be a player with a good eye for the killer pass, one-on-one ability and also the ability to recover and track back rapidly when he or any of his teammates lose the ball.
Modric and Di maria carry out this function to good effect but modric's ability to keep the ball glued to his feet while gliding past players makes him the safer option.
Alonso happens to be the least effective player in acting as the direct link due to his immobility and inability to dribble players in one-on-one situations.

It is only logical that when you throw a player in Alonso's mould to play alongside Alonso in such a formation, what you get is two players incapable of penetrating and playmaking their way into the attacking third.
Evidence of this mismatch could be seen in the fact that our first goal didnt come as a result of a team play, rather, a rebounded set piece.
The second goal was as a result of sheer individual brilliance without any indebtness to team work.
The third goal was one of the oddly beautiful offsprings of the much-maligned-mourinho-propagated counter-attacks.


With illara in the midfield, he ensured that a bulk of our 58% possession (source: espnfc.com) was between the midfielders and defenders without any real penetration.

My analysis obviously seems centred around trying to play down his ability but it is more about highlighting his efficacy in our current 'balanced' system and juxtaposing his ability with his direct competitors for the spot.

If he happens to replace Alonso in the future, what is clear now is that he doesnt have the ability to improve 'OUR' team, he can only maintain our level or drop it by a little notch.
He is by no means a bad player but i would like to point to the fact that with such displays, he is at best a back-up player and a costly one at that.
La Fabrica (former Real Madrid Castilla) boasts of such quality back-up players who would come at no cost and obediently adapt to the role.

@ magic spray and halamadrid2, I hope i did better with this..lol

I think you're coming to a lot of conclusions based on very little.

Illarra has done a great job in his first season so far. Alonso looked pretty ordinary in his first season btw, so did Modric. Considering the make up of our team the central midfielders have a lot of adapting to do before they can really hit their stride. You sort of touched on that point but completely failed to recognise none of that actually means that Illarra isn't playing well.

In any case, I completely disagree with your assessment. Illarra will be a mainstay at the club imo. I hope one day to see him play with Jose Rodriguez from Castilla. Those two would complement each other a lot.

Illara is OK and nothing more. He's basically Alonso without the passing range. If it's a mini-me replacement of Alonso we were looking for, we got it.

His technique is good, but he takes little to no risks. My issue is that he's slow and below average athletically. Nothing he can do to improve that. Unless he develops great overall passing and a great shot, he will be no more than a decent player.

Just to compare... do you think Illara is or will be ever as good as Kroos, Piggy, Thiago, Verratti, Vidal, Pogba, etc.? Nope. Not a chance.

i don't think you can say that just yet no one expected xavi to boss as much as he did, illarra can improve a lot and i think his dribbling is very underrated

@Sportcy,exactly what I am trying to point out. you summarized my points. He will never be as good as those players but for the sake of my team, I hope I am wrong.

@chad4401
Do you think madrid can be that patient to wait for a Xavi-like situation?
The moment we get another beast in the midfield, his playing time would drop even further till he asks for a transfer or we put him on the market.

Again, for the sake of madrid, I hope I am wrong.

shade illarra playing time is secured it obvious he is xabi replacement, once illarra feels comfortable his play will improve, for now he is a very solid prospect.

any new midfielder we get automatically benches di maria and khedira if we don't sell both anyway, again everything that is not flashy doesn't mean their shit either, xabi alonso is a prime example of this and lets not forget xavi either so calma and have patience

some madrid fans needs to get into their heads that not every big name player has to play here its annoying and shallow tbh

sportsczy wrote:
Just to compare... do you think Illara is or will be ever as good as Kroos, Piggy, Thiago, Verratti, Vidal, Pogba, etc.?  Nope.  Not a chance.

Uh.. why not? I see no reason why he can't reach a high level as he develops his game. Did you think Busquests would be elite when he started? Not saying that will happen with Illarra but the guys you mentioned mostly have hype going for them and in my opinion a lot of them are overrated as all fck.

Schweinsteiger was an average winger turned CM/DM by Van Gaal at 26

And Thierry Henry was a relatively average winger turned S/SS genius by Wenger. Just because some average players turn into gems, doesn't mean that it's a common occurrence. I think we all hope that Illaramendi will live up to our expectations, and there's plenty of time for him to do so. I just don't see the exceptional potential in him that's required of a future Xabi replacement. As it is right now, it's going to take a lot of time or a significant boost in performance while Perez still has the patience to keep him. He'll turn 24 in March, and so there's plenty of time for him to get better.

He's already proven that he's a quality player with his importance to Real Sociedad during his final season there, and being a key player for the national team U-21. But I can't picture him developing into a player that can rival that of other top teams' midfield gems. He's got good vision and understanding of the game, but his passing range and overall ability is relatively limited as he is right now, in my opinion.

On a side note, Canales is actually doing pretty well for Sociedad these days I used to be a fan of his, although he never really had his chance to shine for us.

Illaramendi played in a pivot of 4-2-3-1 within Montanier's Sociedad to which equated him carrying a substantial bulk of the midfield play. Defensively he was assisted by Bergara and Elustondo yet in attack he was the one who showed up each and every single time versus La Liga's finest midfields and during the moments where La Real needed midfield domination. He poses cautious nature now because
-Playing in a 3 man midfield is something that he not accustomed to given all the responsibility that was on his within La Real. It presents less freedom and vertical movement given you have to always notify your fellow midfielders movements as that naturally will have you more as a unit. Given the price on him after his breakthrough season it will be difficult to perform in a jump from Sociedad to Real Madrid as Luka Modric was 27 when he came to Real Madrid and put a disappointing season.

The Illara you see now is not the Illara of La Real given that in La Real he was a very vertical player player in his movement and displayed extraordinary range of passing to which solved the Montanier problem of their lack of width. Think his role compared to Steven Gerrard of LFC currently or Claudio Marchisio's recent role under Conte.

His understanding of the game and excellent composure in tight spaces must be used more often yet he must be given time to settle as all the pressures and circumstances on him won't exactly be alleviated in such quick fashion especially given his lack of game time. Players like him take more time to adapt.

"Hay jugadores quien, si les dejas en un bosque sin brujula, siempre saldrán. La mayoria se perderá". (There are players who, if you leave them in a forest without a compass, they'll always find their way out. Most players will get lost.)

Valdano had this great quote once:

"Hay jugadores quien, si les dejas en un bosque sin brujula, siempre saldrán. La mayoria se perderá". (There are players who, if you leave them in a forest without a compass, they'll always find their way out. Most players will get lost.)

Illara is the former.