Real Madrid vs Sporting Gijón

Terrific performance. Absolutely world class. And the hatred we've been getting is testimony to that

Anxiously awaiting Benzema and Bale injury reports. They are simply too good for football fans to be deprived of their talent.

Defensively poor from Marcelo in the second half. Kept getting us exposed at the back.

The subs werent that good when they came on. We lost alot of momentum by the third sub. Not as sharp and good keeping posession

Kovacic at RW ffs Zidane what were you thinking

Great game in first half.

Bale single handedly destroyed them.

Shit subs from Zidane. James at LCM and Kovacic at RW lmfao.

Ronaldo was terrible imo, apart from the goals. He absolutely sucks at open play and team game.

Ronaldo needs to calm down. That kick was unwarranted and there is absolutely no way the reff did not see that. It is not the first time either. He should learn from Isco and Modric. Those guys are as honest as you get. Get kicked, shirt pulled but still try to stay on their feet until its impossible to do so

Damn... i hope it's bs.  Some twitter action that Benz fractured a bone. That's a 3 month injury.

Lol James the gift that keeps on giving......

Wonder how we will play now. Dont want to move Bale from the right now that is playing good, Ronaldo cant do what Benz does and we dont have a Benz back up conveniently

Aubameyang coming now!!!!

Benzema having a heck of a season

yes, he is playing fantastic and SCORING consistently as well whenever he is on the pitch. he controls his position as well as i have ever seen him

probably has the best first touch for a cf out there

Z:

Karim just has a knock, which isn’t so bad. Gareth is a little more complicated because it is his calf and in his left leg which is a problem.

He will have a scan tomorrow and we hope it is nothing serious.

Let's hope for the best. They are both too valuable for us and the team is not the same without them.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Z:

Karim just has a knock, which isn’t so bad. Gareth is a little more complicated because it is his calf and in his left leg which is a problem.

He will have a scan tomorrow and we hope it is nothing serious.

Let's hope for the best. They are both too valuable for us and the team is not the same without them.

Good. Twitter is crap so i was hoping it was some Barca troll.

Meanwhile, somewhere, Sports is running around nude. Zidane continues to reveal many positives. The subs are funny but you can't be perfect so early... Certain things take time.

I am very pleased with Zidane's work so far. as long as we keep playing attacking football, I will have no complaints.

Actually, I share H and Adit concerns over Z's subs. I'm not actually criticizing him for playing Jesé, James or Kova. Two of them weren't even planned. What I don't understand is why did he play the Croatian at RW and James at LCM.

james going forward is gonna be strictly lcm, so that where he is gonna play, its not that hard kova ain't gonna play rw every game, zidane just wants to keep the shape the same, nothing there to panic about.

That one i will never understand at least if you dont want to play the kids switch to a 442. Must be a ghost whispering in his ear, because no way in hell he plays him there if he thought it through properly

come on now benz sub wasn't planned, if zidane start playing james as rw already, then its gonna be a 3 way competition, when the focus should be on the lcm spot.

if the game was closer sure, but its clearly zidane is just seeing the game out.

anybody know have any report on bale and benzema's injuries?

There are at least 3 options on the bench i would have chosen over Kova. They finished the game with James playing RW and Kova LCM anyways which made the whole thing even more bizarre lol

if bale or benz or both misses the next match then we will see if james play on the left or the right.

James looked bored . He looks like he doesn't want to be on the pitch at all. Not his fault that he has no position in this team. Let's see where zidane will play him next game with Bale injured.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Actually, I share H and Adit concerns over Z's subs. I'm not actually criticizing him for playing Jesé, James or Kova. Two of them weren't even planned. What I don't understand is why did he play the Croatian at RW and James at LCM.

Because he wants James to learn to be a CM... that's his only chance to stick with Real Madrid.  You can't break bad natural tendencies if you play him in a role that requires him to use those tendencies.  This game was over... it was about developing the skills he wants James to develop.

It's not only good for this year potentially...  you also want to know whether you should just go ahead and sell a player if he's incapable of the role you want him to play.

You're not in a hurry to make a decision on Kova this summer so you can be less tactical with him for now... but you still want him to play when he can so he did.

titosantill wrote:anybody know have any report on bale and benzema's injuries?

Benzema is nothing serious,,as for Bale, we'll know more about his injury tomorrow.

So instead of playing Kova in his natural position and James in his, it's better to play them both out of position because it's the only way James can survive at Real Madrid? I'm sorry, it's a little bit tough to swallow.

I still think his subs were quite messed up.

we were 5 up, i understand the intent. But at the same time, the shape went completely out of the window with kovacic wide and james center, it did not work well...

The Demon of Carthage wrote:So instead of playing Kova in his natural position and James in his, it's better to play them both out of position because it's the only way James can survive at Real Madrid? I'm sorry, it's a little bit tough to swallow.

I still think his subs were quite messed up.

It is because James has absolutely no future on the wing for us... none. So you either need to make a him a CM or you have to sell him. The more data you have, the better you're able to make that decision.

The game wasn't in doubt. So it was all about data gathering, good or bad.

I need to rewatch the first half again, but i saw two very clear improvement from anything we had done before in this game.

MIdfield spacing was very disciplined, specially Isco who maintained shape and was following the ball to provide an passing option, more so than running forward to await a pass.

The forwards were CONSISTENTLY dropping back in turn to allow the midfielders to pass forward, and to generate runs on either side. I saw CR doing it, Bale did it and savaged the right side with carvajal, and Benzema played even deeper this game than last (i need to compare how many touches he had between both games to test my theory).

Hope it continues this way