LaLiga matchday 4| Villarreal vs Real Madrid | 14th of September 2013

Benzema needs to go to the bench. His head just isn't in it.

Kheidra? pls.

Pepe + Ramos was dreadful. Nacho is and will forever remain a backup (tbf LB isn't his position though)

Our initial lineup seemed great but there was no "number 10". Isco was always on the left and isolated. Didn't seem like a 4-2-3-1 which is what I thought we were going for.

A midfield of Illara - Modric - Isco turned into a 4-3-3 with no service going to the wings. What's the point of having Bale and Ronaldo play there and switch if we can't get the ball to them to even begin with?

Oh and Benzema

How can anyone defend Benzema anymore? The Higuain vs. Benz debate isn't even close. Very clear we sold the wrong striker.

Pepe is a serious liability, all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off.

Isco seemed to turn it on after Bale was removed for some reason? Was less than impressive though he finished strong.

Save us Rafa!

Also is it just me or does Ancelotti completely seem like he is up the creek without a paddle?

he really is.

no more direct, to the point football.

he wants slow, possession based build up. i dont like it.

the players madrid have are suited to fast, attacking, direct football.

it/he wont last long.

Nacho is not a LB
Carva was really good offensively and defensively.
Bale had a better night than I expected. Benzema needs to be benched fast. Pepe was awful, like seriously awful, I would have rather had nacho than him playing there. I liked Illara he was no Khedira though, we needed him in midfield. Morata or Jese should have started

first half was god awful. Second was much better. I hate when ramos goes up to pressure a guy and they easily find a pass behind him. how many times did Villarreal exploit that??

Bale on that right side doesn't work and I thought Illarramendi was our best midfielder of the night. oozes so much xabi about him

I am not too worried tho since barcas luck will run out, sooner or later and they will drop points

we should play Casemiro-Illarramendi-Isco together and DiMaria-Bale-Ronaldo up front. Benz really shouldn't get this much leeway anymore

Excuse me, but how is Benz not a 30 goal scorer?  He scored 32 the season before last and he's had 20+ every season except his first year (homesick) despite being rotated.  He'll do fine.  He has 2+2 in 4 games and he's not even hitting stride yet.

The issue with Madrid is never, ever the quality of the forwards.  That has never been a problem at all.

The key is how our midfield plays.  We were destroyed there last night.  You had Villareal midfielder get through ours and go at our defense with speed and numbers.  Illaramendi needs to stay with his guy all the way into the box if he gets past him... he can't drop him, which is what was happening.  He was absolutely awful defensively.

The back 4 got on its heels and went further back and the gaps between lines got screwed up.

So what happens?  The forwards are isolated.  The can't really make runs because there's no passing angle between the midfielder and them.  So they come up eventually and try to help.

Also Bale, other than the goal, did nothing.  He has to get used to La Liga.  He tracked back... but he didn't help the midfield buildup, which is what he needs to do in these games.  Hopefully, he gets there.  I wasn't that impressed with his technique tbh. Curious to see how he would handle playing in tight spaces... and i got my answer: He can't. Just one game though. But this has always been my criticism of him: technique and small area ability.

The best Offense doesn't help if the Defense is a total mess. Pure Catastrophe. Unbelievable what kind of chances Villareal got.

Pepe is one big uncertainty factor. If it were to me, Madrid should sell Cristiano's 2 best friends at the club. By the way, Mourinho was spot on about Pepe. Varana gives more stability. Can't wait until he's fit again.
Nacho was overwhelmed, Ronaldo, like most of the time, didn't get one decent ball/chance served from him.
Bale was pretty nervous in the beginning, which i guess is normal. Lopez was great, saved lots of shots.
Overall team performance wasn't convincing, although i still see plenty of room for improvement. But, is it with this coach?...
The Team has to find itself, we're still early into the season.

Even though we could have won, it's an okay result. Villareal played great offensively. The yellow submarine is back i guess.

sportsczy wrote:Excuse me, but how is Benz not a 30 goal scorer?  He scored 32 the season before last and he's had 20+ every season except his first year (homesick) despite being rotated.  He'll do fine.  He has 2+2 in 4 games and he's not even hitting stride yet.

The issue with Madrid is never, ever the quality of the forwards.  That has never been a problem at all.

The key is how our midfield plays.  We were destroyed there last night.  You had Villareal midfielder get through ours and go at our defense with speed and numbers.  Illaramendi needs to stay with his guy all the way into the box if he gets past him... he can't drop him, which is what was happening.  He was absolutely awful defensively.

The back 4 got on its heels and went further back and the gaps between lines got screwed up.

So what happens?  The forwards are isolated.  The can't really make runs because there's no passing angle between the midfielder and them.  So they come up eventually and try to help.

Also Bale, other than the goal, did nothing.  He has to get used to La Liga.  He tracked back... but he didn't help the midfield buildup, which is what he needs to do in these games.  Hopefully, he gets there.  I wasn't that impressed with his technique tbh.  Curious to see how he would handle playing in tight spaces... and i got my answer:  He can't.  Just one game though.  But this has always been my criticism of him:  technique and small area ability.

You realize that he hasn't played since July and isn't fit ? Still way better than Benzema in every aspect of the game.

Why the hell didn't we buy Falcao ? Nvm, hopefully Aguero goes through bad form and we buy him in the winter, seems our only option.

Btw, IMO with this current squad + Ozil and Mou we would play way better.

If we are going to play Bale and Ronaldo on the wings, we need a striker that can either be a poacher(a guy that would finish Bale's and Ronaldo's leftovers, Gomez comes to mind) or a guy who could dribble and take defenders with him to create space for others.

I really like to see Jese play there and see what he can do.

Does people even think about what they used to say ??

RM need a poacher now ? lol . What about Ronaldo being THe goalscorer hogging all the chances to score. What about a poacher aka Higgy being useless at the contrary of Benzema who does others things ? What about Cr7 occuping the space of the pure 9 ?

Dude... i wouldn't really pay too much attention to the tactical analysis by most peeps on this subsection. Good guys (and maybe gals); but not really tactically that astute.

In any case, i think Carlo made a big error playing so many new guys all at once together when they've barely practiced with each other, let alone played. Also, Carlo subbed too late when it wasn't working... because it never worked. Our midfield was just overrun.

It took me a while to figure out why we played much better after illara left the field for khedira even tho illara is technically better.
With isco and modric, we have two creative midfielders who dictate the tempo by buzzing around the Centre of the field and making lots of short passes. But with illara on the field, who happens to be a xabi alonso replica, making long passes straight from his dm/cm position to the attackers, modric and isco were shut out of the build up and couldn't dictate the game in their usual fashion so the few times they got the ball, they were too eager to try something out which always failed. You would have noticed that when illara came off, modric and isco got back into the game and that is why we had a better second half.so for people criticizing isco, calling him a decent player, what happened to his previous three matches with 3 goals and an assist.

Also, pepe + Ramos is disaster.
Nacho is not a left back
With respect to bale, I believe his speed and technique in tight spaces is one of the reasons Zidane has been singing his praises.
People saying we sold the wrong striker, I believe you are mixing things up. Ronaldo tends to drift to the number 9's position, bale does that too, so it means if you have a number 9 who prefers to keep to his position, you will eventually have 3 players working at cross-purpose all trying to score and that would be disastrous.
Diego Lopez remains our number one keeper.
Ronaldo needs to play with less force and more intelligence

Our defense gets raped --> Benzema is shit, bench him

Dat logic

Swagg wrote:Our defense gets raped --> Benzema is shit, bench him

Dat logic

Benzema is worse than our defense, if that's possible atm

It's amazing.  We've scored 8 goals this year total.  Benz has 2 goals and 2 assists... so he's directly involved in 50% of them.  Also, on the CR7 goal last night, it came off of a Benz shot where CR7 got the rebound.

He's not in top form... no doubt.  But he produces.  Like it or not, he's been very impactful.  

He had 3 good game before last night imo.  The problem last night was the our midfield sucked and Bale was mostly lost.  We looked disjointed.  Other than Lopez and Carvajal, i thought everyone was mostly poor...  But what the heck, blame the guy who's actually been producing

When benz is playing well we win.. is that a coincidence? I think not... like I said he is key to CR-Bale working and i was right.. he didn't play well and they suffered.

I don't think we give other teams enough credit sometimes, VIllareal were clearly up for this.

I do have larger worries, I think we have players who think about the game fundamentally differently, which is going to disjoint our play occasionally...and Carlo is running some mad experiments with the midfield.

Though people are high on Modric, I continue to wonder if he's right for this team. When our play breaks down to Ronaldo and Bale going at defenders, usually the best case result is going to be a nothing cross or a nothing shot. Modric just doesn't strike me as someone all too concerned about creating space for them, and that's problematic. Especially since Ozil is gone and Isco is far less quick to release the ball.

Watching some of Bale - too much of the stuff he does is predictable. So all that running you saw in the PL over the last couple years is done...and the fancy flicks, they're going to end up costing us goals on the counter when a defender sees them coming from a mile away. He won't be as awful as he way yesterday, but he's never going to be someone who makes good decisions with the ball or who's substance ever moves beyond kick and run skills (though he does seem to have some range within those limits).

How the f*ck did some of you come to the conclusion that Bale was good this game? He did absolutely nothing outside of the goal.

I expected better. He's a much better player than he showed last night.

First game for Madrid.
Look at his price, consider he hasn't played in a while (he had no preseason at all plus he only had only like two games with Wales)

Remember Ronaldo's first game? Against Shamrock rovers?

Bale's first game was against Villareal and away with a sloppy midfield. He did okay after his goal he loosed up a bit.

Lol considering his price he should setting the world on fire, so his price shouldn't be used as justification of a poor performance.

was Benz that bad or is it the usual goallegacy exaggeration guys?

A draw against Villareal really isn't something outrageous and their play yesterday pretty much was deserving at least a point for their efforts.

As for player discussions, 3rd game of the season. Not enough for me to be damning anyone honestly.

billy_gr wrote:was Benz that bad or is it the usual goallegacy exaggeration guys?

 Exaggeration.  None of our forwards were any good mainly because the midfield was overrun... they were all dezoning to try and play the ball and it looked disjointed as a result.

Bale was disappointing.  Villareal flooded the midfield and one of his jobs is to help with the transition when that happens.  In La Liga, the midfield is dense unlike EPL... you can't just ran through it.  You have to technically get around.  He was very poor with no spaces to run into.

But it's only his first game with no preseason.  Let's wait 7-10 games down the line and see where he's at.

Definitely exaggeration at this point. He certainly wasn't at fault when Cani(?) ran straight down the middle to set up the equaliser...