Real Madrid vs Barcelona

Isco has been mostly garbage this season.... all flash for very little result. He's not impressing me either.

Honestly its not our players. Well it is but its there attitudes and heart more so than their abilities.

I dont watch much of Hazard but when I have, not that impressed. Lewa is on a great team, would he even want to leave to play for perez ? Reus and Aguero are the answers but we all know their durability.

@sportzczy but when hes not having a great game, he busts his ass. Thats something I can respect. He doesnt pout or just give up, thats not a competitor. Isco is a competitor.

reus-aguero-hames

if they injure

isco-benzema-hames
kroos-casemiro-modric

still pretty solid imo. also, how about auba? anyway the bigger problem here is rafa, he had lost it.

edit: wrong thread, sorry Madrid fans

^Thanks, can you gtfo now?

If you take a look at Benitez's comments (below) after game and consider the reported players' demands re playing and tactical game plan, it suggests that Benitez wielded to player pressure (not the fans LOL) and it severely backfired.

Question now should be what does he now do, what he knows as right (play a 3 man mid) and have to drama queens fight it out based on performances who get's to start in the other 3 positions!!

Rafael Benítez was critical of his players, assuring that they "started the game well and have enough quality to do better than they did".
The Real Madrid coach refused to talk about tactical errors, but did admit that his starting XI failed to live up to the occasion. "Looking at it after the game, obviously things didn't go well", he said. "I try to manage the group I have in the best possible way", he added.
The manager wants to put the defeat behind him and pronto. "It's painful for us to lose, and to lose the way we did. What we need to do now is close ranks and work hard. What I'm concerned about is restoring the team's morale quickly", he assured.
"We faced a good team, we made mistakes and we paid for them. We gave the ball away and that hurts you. We had the Marcelo chance early on in the second half. If that had gone in, we would have got back into the game", he claimed.
Benítez opted to line up Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema in front of a midfield full of passers in a bid to keep as much possession as possible, but his gambit failed. "We wanted win the ball back high up the pitch and try to dominate possession, but we failed to pull it off", he explained.
Despite the manner of the loss, the Madrid-born tactician is not prepared to throw in the towel even though it leaves his side six points adrift of Barcelona after 12 games: "What we have to do now is bounce back as quickly as possible. There's a long way to go yet."

Time for a new thread, How to restructure Real Madrid!

1) Get Perez to step down (Lol, as if that will ever happen)

2) Immediately get Raul in coach's school, get him moving to become our real coach!!

3) Get rid of all three of BBC.

4) Get rid of Danilo.

4) start playing with a 4-3-2-1 formation. The two being AMs, Isco and James (with Asensio as backup).

5) Get a proper striker.

6) Go get some competent backups for both laterals

Clutch wrote:^Thanks, can you gtfo now?

oh shit, my bad.. I seriously thought this was the general section. i'll delete and repost in general.

just chill lads, there is never any revolutions lol, this will be slow and painful

BBC's work ethic is questionable to say the least, their unwillingness to track back ( to atleast block the passing lanes, let alone tackle or intercept) puts a heavy burden on the rest of the players. Sure, we can get away with that against the small sides, but not against Barca.

How is danilo so bad. My god. He is even worse then arbeloa.

Wow. Its like they dont even know their postions. This is something I expect from an MLS game

But the good thing is, this happened in Carlo's first season too hence my avatar so hopefully Rafa could do the same and sort it out for the business end of the season

Benitez the supposed master tactician being outclassed.
Just pure numbers game. It was 4 against 2 in midfield. 4 of our midfielders up against Kroos and Modric. Both were at sea and got outclassed. Didnt help that Benzema just came back and didnt drop to add numbers.Whats even more surprising is that the supposed master tactician didnt introduce an extra midfielder the whole match. A blind man could see they needed an extra midfielder. James just is not one. Should have taken off one of BBC and brought on Casemiro which would have evened things up.
They only regained a resemblance of control once we took Rakitic off for Messi. Strange move on our part. Knew as soon as Messi came on that we would lose our midfield dominance but then he is too big of a name to leave on the bench.

What do the Madrid fans think of Benitez's performance? Just unacceptable imo that he did nothing. What was he scribbling in his notebook? The menu for dinner.

Benitez was criticised for playing Casemiro and not James against Sevilla being accused of making us defensive. Subsequently he played a bunch of injury returning guys to please the fans and sections of the playes. And predictably it failed. The BBC needs a work horse behind them someone like ADM. The rest of the players work hard but need help from the attackers to execute their defensive duties

And that pic also shows how its a bad idea to play Bale as an AM. Would you ever see Özil level with Ronaldo??? Never in my life would i see that

If Rafa had his way he would probably have started Isco, Lucas and Casemiro. We did play very good in that away PSG game with these players but they are just subs so we will never see the from start in a big game

Tactically this season we have been awful, just a bunch of haphazard players running chasing shadows. I will never forget how thoroughly and utterly outplayed we were at home against PSG, had they had Neymar and Suarez it would literally have been over 6-0. We couldnt even muster a single attack ffs. And that is on Rafa. When we won ladecima, Carlo made it work with BBC by having Ronaldo being the only one who did not track back. Bale defended on the wing which is alot easier for a tactical retard and gave him leewsy because Carvajal is capable of defending a wing on his own. Now i dont even know what they are doing and that is on Rafa

Isco lashing out that is on Rafa. Ronaldo elbowing players every other game, that is on Rafa. Ramos regressing instead of improving that is on Rafa. And where is Kovacic wouldnt extra midfielders have been great against Barca?? How we played Bilbao by overpopulating the midfield was the way forward. Modric, Kroos, Isco, Kovacic know how to work the space and get into the empty holes to get passed pressing and know when to swap roles in defence. The BBC and James dont, even under Carlo they were like this. You need to play to the strength of your best midfielder to get that attack going, he did it with ADM then Isco and thats when we played our best football. The styles of BC clash with the style of the rest, hence why you see such a big gap in the middle, they are run behind the defnce and wait for an over the top ball while the mids are work the space until you see an opening

As much as i would like to blame Rafa. Perez has to take some of the blame. Without him whispering orders in our coach's ears Ramos would get his crap together after being benched by our other cbs, Bale and Ronaldo would get subbed out when its appropriate to do so, Danilo would not be playing, Benzema would fear for his spot etc etc. So our coach's hands are kind of tied before they even get to us

Carlo had a way of getting through to our primadonnas by making them only play tactical when we played Barca/Bayern. Every other game they could do as they wished. But instead of clueless Danilo and regressed Ramos in defence they had wonderful Pepe and rocksolid Carvajal.

Can you believe that the only thing this team needed was a back up LB, goalie, back up midfielders and a back up cf. Instead we get a back up RB to a guy that never got injured which then turned into start amazingly enough, sold our back up lb and sold our back up cf and sacked our coach. The Madrid way

Well he gave into the demands to attack more but they didnt even do it properly. The Madrid press was a joke. We are garbage at playing it out of the back nowadays and hoof it to Suarez at the first sign of trouble. And yet we looked like prime Pepcelona yesterday playing it out the back. Key to a good press is to press the DM to cut the out ball or the pressure relieving ball. And yet Busquets was left in acres of space either side to receive the ball and advance the play.
Madrid were neither here nor there.

That has been a common occurence this season. Our players press in turns instead of together hence why they waste unnecesary energy while the other team just casually pass the ball past our players. This Barca game is not the first time it has happened this season. It was the same against Atleti, PSG, Celta etc. Just half arsed pressing by players who only did it when they felt like it

Well it is not impossible to press with these players, against Barca under Pep when the tiki taka was most prevelent our pressing high up was amazing. Everyone knew their roles. This time there were maybe 3 players pressing while there was a huuuggeee gap until the next line of players which in this case was the midfielders. I know we can do it because against Bilbao and PSG away we pressed with our whole team high up which resulted in turn overs by their players. Everyone were on point. This what we saw yesteday looked like a mixed coaching message. It looked like sole of them were told to press while others were told to stay back. There isnt any other way i could explain it because we do know how to press like a team

I am so dissapointed because under pressure, Pique and Budquets are absolutely awful and turn over machine. I am really dissapointed we didnt take advantage of that.

That said i was impressed with Barcas pressing and tracking back. It was only last season the MSN was blamed for being lazy. This game they were running their socks off and they were rewarded. Hats off to them. Thats how we should be playing but the playing styles of our forwards and midfieldes clash so thats going to be impossible

I honestly think our players do not like and do not believe in Rafa. Under Carlo, our team would die for him, hell even mou the first two years. They whole heartedly believe in their tactics and scheme. Getting rid of Carlo was a big betrayal to our players and seeing everyone walking back in el clasico... I repeat EL CLASICO, shows that our players dont give a crap about rafa.

Modric: we did not play as a team

Wonder who he is criticizing

I'm actually surprised he didn't snap and say "I'm not happy here". To dump the defensive duties on two or three midfielders while the BBC is taking a walk is unfair to say the least.

He's a true professional for not voicing his discontent publicly. And I felt bad for him in the second half, he was utterly exhausted and could barely run.

Cant believe we sold Higuain they fight in that man could fire up a whole team. He is getting better and better too

Watching Napoli today, he was still fighting at 80th minute eventhough his team was 2-0 up.

Think leaving Madrid was the best thing that could have happened to him.

RealGunner wrote:Watching Napoli today, he was still fighting at 80th minute eventhough his team was 2-0 up.

Think leaving Madrid was the best thing that could have happened to him.

he was like that here too. a real fighter. no wonder he didn't get along with cr, only Thugzema can be his biatch

Anyone should have expected this when you sacked Carlo.

Obviously, it was terrible in his second year, losing his best player in ADM, and yet Madrid had a great first half. Even in the second half, in games you lost, you looked good (except the Atleti defeat).

You can't have it your way every season, and you should build up with what the COACH, not the president wants. Yet, in typical Madrid fashion, you fire the coach and then expect the team to do well with another coach.

Since the new century, Madrid was the team to spend the most money and get the least out of it.

Newsflash, that is going to continue in the long run, as long as Madrid is run as it is now.

Barca will not let go of their advantage, and their going to ride Messi's prime to the end. After that, they already have Neymar, and you would bet they would be the smarter team when it comes to getting the next big thing.

Note how Madrid splashed their big money on Bale, a limited one dimensional BPL donkey, and James, a World Cup wonder. contrast that with Barca buying Neymar, a young talent that carried both club and country, and Suarez, who was proven in the BPL for 3 years, and in Ajax before that, as well as with Uruguay.