Who would have thought a midfield of Kroos, James, Isco would be defensively competent? If one did, you are literally wasting your talent on the forum and you need to get your coaching license.

Of course, they are not the strongest defensive unit out there but those men sure work genuinely hard to keep the shape Carlo wants.

@Valk, you're impressed by Bale's lack of work rate? Really? It's so bad that someone got impressed how bad it is? And is it possible that we all silently agree Bale isn't being nefarious and looking to only pass to CR but simply just being a complete d1ck.

That half shot half trying to square it to Ronaldo gone horribly bad was so pathetic. How many attacks did he kill with awful crosses. I am done with him. Either he plays as a striker or not at all

@ Voiceofthevoiceless, I agree with you re Illarra. I think he is being too safe and takes quite some time to make up his mind which kills counters or attacks as a whole.

Marcelo played excellent I thought and that penalty was bs, did he even touch him?? If Ronaldo's penalty a couple of games ago is bs then so is this one. Same amount of contact, similar dives etc

Regarding the subs, I think the only option was to bring on Coentrao. Arbeloa is not good anymore, then you have the inexperienced Medran, Jese who is just back from injury, a striker and Nacho. Our CBs were fine but Almeria were using the wings alot so it made sense to only put a lb in

Doc wrote:Who would have thought a midfield of Kroos, James, Isco would be defensively competent? If one did, you are literally wasting your talent on the forum and you need to get your coaching license.

Of course, they are not the strongest defensive unit out there but those men sure work genuinely hard to keep the shape Carlo wants.

@Valk, you're impressed by Bale's lack of work rate? Really? It's so bad that someone got impressed how bad it is? And is it possible that we all silently agree Bale isn't being nefarious and looking to only pass to CR but simply just being a complete d1ck.

i think @valk meant to say the thing that "surprised" him the most, rather than "impressed"

@hala, arbeloa hasn't been good since 2010, he has been able to win fans over because of the iker feud than what he has done on the pitch....i have no problem with teammates criticizing each other (in doors though, not to the press); my issue with arbe is, you CANNOT question another teammates commitment, if you've been playing like crap yourself...even mourinho who he praises, benched him on numerous occasions

as for bale, i trust ancelotti can bring him back to his best; he's done it with benzema, isco, di maria, and pepe....bale's talented, he's acting a fool now, but hopefully carlo can get some sense in him soon

Arbeloa was very good in 11-12. Along with 09-10 that was his best season with us.

I said in some others thread too, that Bale has been like this since Ronaldo's injury like year, and it got worse when he scored in the UCL final. In his mind he is a star, the guy who won la decima.

illarra clearly playing well but he is the problem and not the super dog shit footy bale is playing smh, typical focusing on the least popular player to blame for any problem and skipping over the real culprit and other than the goal isco messed up a lot of chances and cr was bad as well, but somehow illarra caused that smh

Barcelona drew with Getafe today. That Iker save already proving to be vital. 4 points clear of Barca & Atleti (if they beat Villareal).