Man glad I stopped after the 2nd went in then.
I just felt we were going to get absolutely hammered, don't think I've switched off more than 5 Madrid games in the last 10 years.

Also I like how the official Madrid website have coined this:

'Hiccup in the Calderon'

****ing ****s

better now than later. we're still top of the table but we miss Modric very much. these 2 months made me realize what a player he is.

Valkyrja wrote:better now than later. we're still top of the table but we miss Modric very much. these 2 months made me realize what a player he is.

He's the best midfielder in the world, in my opinion. It's not very surprising that his absence has been noticeable. With that being said, I don't think the result would've been much different, even if he had been playing today. The final score doesn't bother me half as much as the team's overall performance, it was really quite depressing and frustrating to watch.

Thimmy wrote:

Valkyrja wrote:better now than later. we're still top of the table but we miss Modric very much. these 2 months made me realize what a player he is.

He's the best midfielder in the world, in my opinion. It's not very surprising that his absence has been noticeable. With that being said, I don't think the result would've been much different, even if he had been playing today. The final score doesn't bother me half as much as the team's overall performance, it was really quite depressing and frustrating to watch.

the attitude was depressive. they literally gave up at HT.

sportsczy wrote:Midfield neither fed the forwards nor defended AT ALL.  Bale and Ronaldo did nothing to help the fullbacks...  Atleti ate our midfield alive and attacked our fullbacks since they were outnumbered.  Forced the CBs to come out and try to help.  Well guess what... that means the midfielders have to track EVERY Atleti midfielder and the strikers that attack the box since the CBs are forced out of position.  They didn't.

Result = first two goals were conceded to midfielders.  The first one was a pathetic mistake by Iker... but still, the shot was by a midfielder.

As far as tactics...  Ronaldo is not the dominant player he was 2 years ago individually and Bale is not a dominant player period.  Carlo MUST not just bend over to CR and Bale when we play BBC.  They have to do the job collectively and they don't.

But the bottom line is that we have a massive midfield problem with Modric out...  James compensated pretty well (although not as good).  Khedira was absolutely awful.

i agree 100 percent with this.....the defense was pathetic, just pathetic, midfield lukewarm; no penetration no flair, you need to actually rip atleti's defense apart if you want to beat them, settling for counters won't cut it cos they are not an offensive side.....ron and bale need to do more, scoring ten thousand goals everyday does NOT equal dominance....once upon a time we were guaranteed six points off atleti, now we can't beat them to save our skin, its ridiculous, and imo they've had some better squads than this, its primarily about attitude

Simeone has tactically destroyed Carlo's base tactics... He's neutered our system AND he's created matchup problems against our typical starting XI.

This one falls on Carlo to fix. Without Di Maria to be our superman in the midfield defensively WHILE attacking still... we can't make BBC work against the better sides imo. We just don't have athleticism in the midfield with our without Modric.... just a bunch of little creative guys who are doing their best to defend. That won't work if you're defending with 7, which is what we're doing with BBC.

So either Bale and Ronaldo step up and play defense at the minimum level a winger should do... or one of them has to sit. Otherwise, we're not winning anything this year folks.

I just hope we don't play Chelsea in CL because Mourinho will eat this up and embarrass us... i don't think i could live with that

Our attitude was disgusting after conceding the second goal, we just gave up after that.

The problem is that, when you find a working system, use it. Our best games this season have been vs Barca and Liverpool away, both with the 442 formation.

Why not drop Bale for this match and play I dunno Jese there, or tell Bale to act as a right midfielder rather than a winger.

Also how the heck does Khedira get a starting place infront of Illara, who clearly has been better this season, also is more motivated than Khedira actually.

But I'm sure Carletto will find a way around this corner, and beat Atleti next time around. I'm not mad at the result at which we lost, actually I hate the way we play into their game. We are smarter than this.

this probably our last game against them this season.

and we never got chance to see how will our best squad fight against them.

bale just don't work, and dont see it happening in future. not blaming him for this game since everybody else were awful, it just frustrate me that the situation is going no where.

flo was there, if he cared, maybe he should start to say or work something out with carlo.

I'm really not looking forward to our clash against Barcelona on the 22nd of march. We've been playing like crap for a few months now, and they seem to have been hitting form recently. From a neutral point of view, I know which team I'd fear more right now, and it's not the team that's been playing as if it was just some annoying obligation. Hopefully, things will get better over the course of the season, otherwise I may have to start saving up for a pacemaker.

Don't get me wrong, there's definitely been some positive developments since the start of the season. Benzema's in the form of his life, and James is playing very well, but as a unit, they're a shadow of what they were last season. Just like it matters little when Barcelona steamroll Elche 5-0 in the league, it matters just as little when we do the same. Performance cannot be measured by the rate at which a team is capable of thumping fodder teams in the league and copa. The difference is that Barcelona are actually performing well as a unit, despite their defensive frailties.

Still there's a lot of time for Carlo to fix the team. i'm not too worried about Barcelona's form, they are on their peak right now but i think they'll cool off, we also had our purple patch early in the season.

We've been missing Modric's presence in our midfield these past few weeks and it's clear why we're struggling without him, the Kroos-Khedira/Illara partnership lacks fluidity, they don't add anything to our attacking moves, Bale and Ronaldo are not helping much either so it forces Isco and Benzema to work more.

Bale is awful and contribute nothing to the team, i just hope Carlo realize it sooner and bench him.

What's happened to this section? The last time I was a semi-active poster on this forum, we had the most active section on the whole forum. There barely seems to be any activity on here, these days.

lol, my thought's too, and I made the same complaints some 6 months back, heck, Madrid could be winning 8-0 against Chelsea at stamford bridge and here would still be 2 pages long after 1 week.

The thing is that we had MT and Z that kept this place alive. Before that we were a large group here who also were friends outside the forum, such as halcon, moh, crim and other guys so we argued or commented a lot back in the day. Now few members have remained , back in the day there were like 20 if not more active members.

What happened to Z?

he probably got a job and is working 10 hours a day... so no time i would imagine.

i'm not sure if its hala that made this statement "coentrao gets injured in his sleep"....well according to marca coentrao has picked up a training ground injury (what else is new) and left back mario hermoso has been called up to train with the first team....dang can't believe we signed coentrao for 30 mill, this dude always get's injured....marcelo is injury prone too, but comparing him with coentrao he's as fit as a drill sergent