UCL Galatasaray 17th Sep

StrugaRock wrote:This game has Benzema written all over him, he will play better in this match and fans will forget his poor matches this season.

I knew it would happen, I sensed it.

Madrid will make us squirt all over the whole place and use our butt to mop it off....

I think I will skip Madrid-Juve Bernabeu game, will rather be in church praying for the goals to be less...

This result is just wrong. We played shit football today and then scored 6 goals. All our goals were as a result of individual brilliance and none was down to tactics. We couldn't beat them at their full strength, we just fed off their weakness when their moral dropped. They were almost a villarreal but with a weak mental strength. We couldn't overcome villarreal cos they kept their mental composure for 90 minutes. So is it that we can't beat superior teams when their mental strength is in-tact or we always have to wait for teams to drop their guard. Dortmund would rape us at this rate.
The scoreline hides the truth and am just very disappointed that we wouldn't pay attention to improving our gameplay cos we feel we played a perfect game by scoring 6

dimaria need to start, things run with him on the field even thou he's not having a spetacular game.

Thought we had a really good game. Apart from the opening 15 min we controlled the tempo of the game

Benz had a very good game dont know what mt was watching. The only guys deserved of criticism were Modric who forgot he had defensive duties and Khedira with his first touch of a donkey.

credit should go to Lopez tho who managed to prevented all galas early chances from going in(which was a result of mistakes by our midfield rather than poor defending)

@terrance, Di María in my opinion was the best player on the pitch yesterday. kept yilmaz and all other left sided gala players at bay when they tried to attack carvajal. He was a direct involvement in all our three first goals and could have bagged himself at least two goals in the first half if he had a right foot or Ronaldo's attempt at through balls had worked

Oh look Ronaldo can score just fine without Ozil lol

And to anyone thinking the opening half wasn't by design re watch the game.

I thought Galas chances in the opening half was a result of mistakes by our midfielders than anything else

They had three open play chances and two from set pieces

the three chances came from Khedira having a shit first touch which then Gala took and capitalized on. On another it was Modric trying a horizontal hollywood ball carelessly without looking if it could be cut out by a Gala player which it was and the third when Isco thought he was fouled but Clattenberg wad having none of

then they got corners either resulting from one of these chances or freekicks from Drogba dives; and these were also very dangerous with lopez being called in to stop them

I thought we looked alot better when Illaramendi was playing rather than Modric because with him there he basically takes of the playmaking duty off from the two cbs who were forced to do too much with Modric venturing forward and not doing the duty of a dlp. I also think we should start playing Casemiro over Khedira. At least to see if we look better under pressure then

ps: always knew ronaldo would come good. he looks very happy as well and tried some good stuff with dimaria that must have been rehearsed in training. think he has already gotten over the loss of ozil

Crimson wrote:Oh look Ronaldo can score just fine without Ozil lol

And to anyone thinking the opening half wasn't by design re watch the game.

They key was that Carlo switched from a 4231 where Isco was central and CR7 on the left to a 4222 with CR7 going central next to Benzema.  Did that in around the 30 min mark i think.  Once that happened, it opened up space for Isco to attack the left as opposed to getting crowded in.  

We get a lot more width in the 4222.  The fullbacks get more involved.

Our CBs were flat out pathetic though, especially Ramos. Lopez and opponent crazy misses saved us. Two bad games by them. Very tactically poor, which is worrisome. They don't play together at all.

Ramos was actually very good. he keeps giving away silly fouls tho but thats better than to see another Cani like run inbetween players happen

its easy to put the CBs as scapegoats but what people don't realize is that we dont play with a pivot protecting the backfour anymore we play something resembling a 4-4-2 and in that you need midfielders who would be willing to do the dirty work at the back. We didn't see that vs Villarreal because both Mpdric and Isco couldn't be bothered to track back leaving Illaramendi on his own. And in the first quarter of the game we saw another one of those "the team doesn't know what its doing situation" mainly because the midfield lost the ball and Galatasaray exploited the pocket of spaces that is left behind when all three midfielders attack plus the fullbacks which our systems need.

its easy for the cbs to look shite in this formatipn because not only do they have to cover for our fullbacks but they also need to prevent a quick counter when we lose the ball in midfield

the goal was inexcusable tho. how can Pepe just let bulut run past him like that??

the constant pressuring by benzema at the top also helped because it didn't give Gala enough time to think of where to pass. Villarreal had all the time in the world to do this. Another advantage was DiMaria tucking in to the midfield to create a compact mid 4 for 1-2s and benz would drop deep which essentially gave us another passing outlet. oh and he was like a dog hunting yesterday fought for every god damn ball. why couldn't he have done that in our league games?

so believe it or not. the reason for our improved game from the villarreal was because we started Khedira(would've been better with casemiro) who would help cut out passing lanes, Arbeloa playing who is more experienced than nacho, dimaria play that rw role who is less one-dimensional than bale and benzema looking like the player he should be

I haven't looked at the heat map but I bet our midfield was so compact they started overlapping and our defence very close to the midfield. Against Villarreal it looked like an obese belly cut into three sections

if I had to improve anything I would test out Casemiro instead of Khedira (we dont yet know if he consitently can give us good games), start Illaramendi over Modric who is simply better at everything a DLP needs to do and play DiMaria as our RAM. Bale can be our supersub. it will take the laliga teams at most three games until they have read this guy like a textbook. he is very predictable

Also sports, you said people hated Benz just because they felt like hating him eventhough he scored. But I mean compare his game yesterday with his game vs betis for example and then compare the comments. Nobody gets unnecessarily criticised in this team unless they warrant it

Ramos was very, very poor tactically.  He keeps playing too low and bringing players onsides.  What i don't get is that he follows a player behind him although the ball is still in front of him...  wtf is that.  That player is in an offsides position.  By tracking him lower, you're just making it easy for him to get back on + you're often on the wrong side of the player defensively.

It also does something else.  The fullback drops to the level of the last CB.  If you're too low, the fullbacks are too low.  Even if you quickly jump up to get yourself in the proper position, chances are that the fullbacks are going to be late adjusting to your adjustment.

Our CBs need to flow and Ramos needs to get his positioning much, much better.

That said, Pepe is not good at it either.  But the pairing of Ramos-Pepe is awful.  I'd hate being a fullbacks playing next to those guys because they're making my job much more difficult.

Ramos and Pepe are too similar. They need a sweeper next to them. Varane was a brilliant buffer to Ramos but I bet he would have been to Pepe as well

I agree with the general opinion that Pepe has regressed because he simply cant spot runs behind/past him these days. Happened today, happened vs Dortmund and happened vs Villarreal etc he needs to spot the and block their path to the ball. Ramos I have noticed has a slight problem with this but not as much as Pepe

Every time we don't play well, it's because of Benz lol.  The criticism is on him.  If he missed great chances and cost us, then ok.  But he is performing.  I mean look at his production this year so far:

http://espnfc.com/player/_/id/46858/karim-benzema?cc=5739

5 games, 5 starts, 402 mins
4 goals, 3 assists, 16 shots
Goal every 100 mins.  Goal or assist every 57 mins
25% efficiency

I understand and agree that he's not in brilliant form yet.  But he's very effective.

You know what i think our biggest areas of criticism are?  fullbacks have been poor other than carvajal, CBs are inconsistent, Ozil was poor while he was here, CR7 wasn't as sharp as he will be AND we were getting new players into the mix...  I'd put Benz not being in full form at 5th place in regards to reasons we hadn't played up to snuff at certain points.

That said, i think we've started well.  We also have a new coach with new tactics... a lot of people forget that.  Preseason doesn't get you that sharp.  You need real competition for things to fall in place.

I already said it in chat yesterday but I thought Benz was one of our best players in the first half and guess what?? he hadn't yet scored then

it doesn't matter if he doesn't score as long as he looks like he has tried, people will call him unlucky not fat and lazy like they (we) have been calling him when he puts in absolutely no effort.

even if he'd scored vs Villarreal it wouldn't have changed a thing the only thing it would've changed is his stats. he would still have been called lazy

if he puts in efforts like this consistently its not going to matter if he goes a couple of games without scoring because he pretty damn has tried then

Would Benz of last season had slid like that when he scored?? no the guy is showing alot more pasdion now than before and I like that. he even puts his arms up when a pass doesn't go to him which should have

its nothing to do with scapegoating just pointing out an obvious flaw of a player that the coach even agrees on (despite him scoring)

I agree with criticism.  No player is above it... i just don't like over-criticism.  I understand that Higuain was a fan favorite and a lot of people looked for every little flaw in Benz because they wanted Higuain to prevail.

But Higuain is gone now.  Let's show constructive criticism towards Benz now as opposed to agenda-driven criticism.  We need him to be in top form for us to compete for everything.

If he was in bad shape, not trying hard or having a poor attitude, then flay him.  But he's trying hard.  His confidence just hasn't been high because of last year and NT.  He's regaining momentum and confidence right now...

Finally, Carlo came back on those comments saying his Spanish is poor and it didn't come off they way he meant it (after Betis)... he meant that some players' style is based on energy and effort and the crowd normally appreciates it because it's very tangible.  Other players' style is more rhythm and flow-based and they don't create the same reaction because it's more subtle.  So the fans cheering something they can feel is normal.

I think when we remove the player from the right everyone falls into a slightly more natural position. Unfortunately, with Bale, I don't see it happening very often.

The problem sports talked about is pretty much going to be an issue all season long. Trying to fit 3 players where there's room for two in attack.

Benzema was probably MOTM yesterday. He was running from start to finish. He won the ball back high up the pitch, ran for everything. He was the Benz we want to see every week.