James should not play as a center midfielder, it should be Isco

Tittosanttil

I don't get how you say Isco- kroos- modric-james doesn't work. Our biggest ever winning streak came, 22 win including Destruction on Barca and several tough teams with the use of that exact same line up. And also don't get how your point of them getting knackered under Ancelotti as a proof that it didn't work. If anything it shows that Ancelotti got the first choice line up right but refused to rotate which he has been guilty of several other teams he has coached as well. Isco has high work rate with out that that formation wouldn't have worked like a charm. I don't get how can discredit a 22 game win streak that only ended because of Ancelotti's no rotation policy not because the tactics were bad.

Also the bottom line is everybody plays their best line up. Nobody benches their best players because of fear of getting injured. MSN played always even when Pedro was there dude, that is the reason Pedro left. He didn't get enough game time. We have much superior squad depth this season than last so I don't think one or two injuries are end of the world for us even if we get.

first of all, that wasn't the same line up for all 22 games. and to be perfectly  honest, i was never taken by the winning streak. it was good while it was on, but in a league where you can finish with 90 points and still lose, i've never put much emphasis on streaks till its close to the end. besides barcelona, (who had their own issues) none of those teams were teams i remotely thought could test us, and as i said, besides barcelona, the calendar had been pretty good to us. we didn't meet sevilla, atleti, nor valencia. and that group stage was hakuna matata (not to mention copa del rey opponents and unnecessary world club cup games)

just to be clear, i'm not bashing your ideas in any way, when i look at a formation, i'm thinking "can i trust this in crunch time"? i'm not thinking if it will work against guys like eibar,getafe et al. i'm thinking about latter stages of ucl, about atleti, barcelona. and if i'm thinking in that time frame, i expect the line up to have played a grueling number of games. as i've said throughout, i expect this to work against lesser teams. and even today, if we put out this line up, we probably would have won. but until i see it work i can't trust it in latter stages of a competition against a team that knows what its doing- not a good team in crisis, like say utd.

adit, my main point is, there are two ends of the floor. the fact we lack creativity doesn't mean we can throw defense under the bus like it doesn't matter. i don't mind us trying out that formation, i'm slowly losing hope in our season, but as far as building something sustainable, i don't think that's it. and as far as isco's work rate, i keep mentioning the sevilla game, especially that second goal. he's a fantastic player with the ball, but without the ball, he tends to stroll. in latter stages of a competition(against reasonable guys) that team will run out of gas

tito, that team played against Villareal at El Madrigal and they won (0-2). That team played against Bilbao and won (5-0). Beat Liverpool (0-3) and Barça (3-1). These are not in any way easy games or scrub teams.

One thing for sure, if that team played yesterday against Villarreal, they would've sunk the yellow submarine by half-time.

I completely understand your skepticism about that formation, but don't you agree that it's, at least, better than this one?

Point taken tittosanttil.. You don't believe in defensive stability of that formation and I agree defensively it is average but that is still better than what we have right now.

One clarification about the Seville game. We played 4312 only time that game. Isco played the 1... You can't expect that player to track the winger, that is the problem with that formation. 4312 is poor at defending wings and if you can remember we got destroyed on the wings especially Danillo's wing where he was poor and got no support.

@ the demon, any formation is better than this one (honestly i don't know what this one is). what i'd like is two ball winners in the middle and one of kroos or modric infront of them. i honestly don't know where isco ,james, or bbc will play because of the rubbish we've gotten ourselves into; but i'm not particularly fascinated by the football of anyone further up, whether it be bbc, isco, james. what i'd like is just for wingers to play like wingers, midfielders to play like midfielders....as long as danilo,ramos are in the defense, they need a miracle. marcelo's far from the best defender out there, but you know we are in danger when marcelo starts looking like the most reasonable person in the back four

You make a very compelling case and I agree with you. Still, I do believe that our problems, aside from Rafa's tactical cluelessness, are mostly caused by BBC. I think that Isco and James would look much better in a different setup with more hardworking strikers up front.

BTW, you did a tremendous job in the Villarreal vs Real Madrid thread. Kudos mate

This is getting embarrassing. Entire BBCJ plays just because they have to... Absolute bs.

exactly, the game changed when Kovacic came on for james, if it makes any sense given the context of what was happening

When Rayo had 11 men the workrate of these players was pathetic. Like James would literally walk and he was a fcking CM and Benz would drift in and out of offside positions. Horrendous professionalisms not following orders

halamadrid2 wrote:When Rayo had 11 men the workrate of these players was pathetic. Like James would literally walk and he was a fcking CM and Benz would drift in and out of offside positions. Horrendous professionalisms not following orders

+1

Any one saw flo's look in the end ? He wasn't happy.

Benitez out

I was actually pro Benitez.. I will gladly say I was wrong. Absolutely horrible coach.. The balls he has to keep playing that failure of a line up.

There are issues beyond Benitez, sure the players are in a bad moment and you can tell they arent enjoying themselves or enjoying life with Benitez. But you will change that and that will not make James know how to play CM or BBC defend harder.

Adit wrote:Any one saw flo's look in the end ? He wasn't happy.

Benitez out

I was actually pro Benitez.. I will gladly say I was wrong. Absolutely horrible coach.. The balls he has to keep playing that failure of a line up.

Flo has only himself to blame. Sure you can fire Carlo, but don't fire him only to replace him with an inferior coach with a mediocre CV, fresh off a failed experience with Napoli.

I have never seen the team this disinterested. This is post-Del Bosque era all over again.

I don't understand the signing of Benitez. The only reason I can think of Perez hiring him is that he's spanish & former Madrid player.

WHo is to blame for the fact that James + BBC cant play together? Benitez or Flo?

you guys just pouring your frustration at Benitez because he is easy to blame. He is not perfect, he has made mistakes, he made some players turn on him because he is odd at man management, but the true problems of this team do not end with Benitez. They were already present with Carlo before Di Maria became CM and after he left.

It's really tiring of reading people acting as if Carlo was the best thing ever. We played our best football under him 1) when Di Maria was around, 2) when Bale got injured and we lined up Isco-Kroos-Modric-James/CR-Benz.

Sacking Benitez and signing someone the players like will boost morale for sure, until our flaws are fatally exposed again against a tough team, i.e clasico losses with carlo, 4-0 vs atletico, 4-0 vs barca, losing to juve in cl semis etc...

Something drastic needs to happen for us to build a stronger team beyond the sacking of Benitez. we need to make a decision about benching James, at least until the end of the season when CR potential leaves and we DO NOT SIGN SOMEONE ELSE TO REPLACE HIM. That or Bale gets his usual injury. That means playing a lot more of Kovacic, as positionally he understands the role of interior better than Isco. Casemiro-Kroos-Modric is to be considered as well but Kroos struggles a bit when playing interior nowadays, or at least, (my theory) the way Benitez is coaching the change is not working because he plays there for Germany and does just fine.

ps: BBC + James can definitely play together, but not with Modric and Kroos behind them. another casting flaw. you need two box to box engines to support those guys, like Piggy-Javi when Bayern won the CL.

that james and bbc can't play together is due to poor planning than it is with coaching. when you have all 4 players for that price tag, its difficult for a coach to bench any of them. not because florentino will storm rafa's office and slap him with a sack letter, but because those players themselves have a lot of clout with the media and it ends up with a lot of negative energy hovering over the team

i don't like rafa, never did, i don't think florentino liked him neither. i think this was one of those moves where one of flo's advisers must have said to him "sign the guy, he's born in madrid, what's the worst that could happen"? but, one can't pin the bbc + james on rafa. we can blame him for tactical shape or lack thereof, lack of a consistent formation, the cheryshev thing (i don't excuse him, nor cheryshev, for that). but not this. any manager would have had this same problem, and i mentioned it when we signed james. its not just flo's fault neither, because a lot of fans were also begging florentino to make it happen, without assessing the impact it would have on the squad

rafa's not getting fired, at least not until the end of the season. firing him now is foolish. i know people are looking at chelsea and how they fired mourinho. chelsea were in relegation zone and mourinho had lost the locker room. rafa may not have the locker room with him, but the team's still managing. i'd rather we wait till summer for a more permanent move, instead of an intermediary, then if the intermediary succeeds we still fire him....i don't like such inconsistency. i'd rather we swim with the tide, and settle all our problems in the summer. covering the cracks now will help nothing especially if we are going to be unraveling the whole thing all over again in summer. if our position on the table was worse, then i may have had a different view. wait till summer before such big moves like firing and hiring

Benching one will create negative energy?

As if losing match after match and getting outplayed by rayo while bernabue are boooing game after game are any less negetive energy.

Benitez can play his gala line up and still will get sacked. He is an idiot if he thinks playing certain players will keep him his job.

It has nothing to do with the players... there is a system that works fine with the players we have. All Rafa needs to do is look at what Carlo was doing. Only reason Carlo's teams finished badly was that he overplayed the starting XI and they got tired/injured to finish the season.

But as i recall, we were in first place in the second half of the season both years Carlo was here.... we just ran out of steam.

The only thing Rafa needs to do is follow Carlo's tactics but put in place a proper rotation to keep players in working condition to end the season. That was it.

you're assuming rafa watched ancelotti's madrid. he was busy doing whatever he was with napoli. this is how it is, and we will just have to stomach it till the season ends and hope for the best. i don't like it neither, i just try to think up possible explanations. but we've beaten that drum long enough

James as a CM/LCM doesn't work and you all have already explained why. So there's not a lot more for me to add

But if many of you believe benching him will help, then I hope Rafa does. I care about results and how the team is playing. Any mix of our midfielders will not change the dynamic of our front three or how we play against top opposition.

don't know why people are conveniently forgetting that james was much better at lcm, under carlo because there was a game plan and some structure.

rafa provides none of that as i said and keep saying it, you guys need to look at the bigger picture before barking, rafa is making all the players worst, and his tactics are clearly shit.

We are acknowledging that, yet, it doesnt mean that it's a setup that brought us success. And even last season we could see how flawed that setup was. And let's be honest, James has stopped running the way he did when he arrived and all were expecting him to work hard to replace Di Maria. He now walks around the pitch, sees himself as a star and we are already hearing about him looking for new wages... and he proved nothing on the pitch in big games yet...

It's not that "his tactics are clearly shit", another oversimplification. Benitez is clearly a different kind of manager, he is not as good at coaching talents like Carlo. That does not mean he is worse, he is just different, like Mourinho vs pep.

How can the BBC and James best play together?

Maybe a 442 where Bale actually plays as a hard working and intelligent footballer, the odds of that happening are probably slim though. Just like CR7, it doesn't look like Bale can take the initiative and do something positive for his team.

Maybe if our ship keeps sinking positive flak can lead to the eventual departure of CR7 by the end of the season and/or the elimination of the BBC as the starting line-up beforehand. I'm actually going to welcome catastrophe and embarrassment if it translates to the aperture into greener pastures.

Based on our squad's context there is arguably no possible way that we can optimally run a team at our full potential with the BBC playing.

The Copa is lost, the league is most likely lost, so that only leaves the Champions League. I say that Benitez, the players, and the club do whatever possible to maximize our possibilities in the CL by doing what has to be done when it most counts. (Something Carlo didn't do against Juve at the Bernabeu for example).

That also means finding and building on a consistent team-play in the League so that we can gain momentum and also polish up in all areas.

Against Bayern at the Allianz and against Barca at the Mestalla in 2014, Bale actually played relatively decent, lets try to do that again.

Either make him defend, run, move, pass, and anticipate as an intelligent midfielder/forward (as he sort of did against Bayern) or impose damage limitations and Bench one of the BBC (arguably most likely Benz due to political reasons) and place Bale in a similar role as in the 2014 Copa del Rey final.

If Benitez is going to get the sack anyways, he might as well try to go down like a Hero and do what others couldn't or didn't dare to do.