Real Madrid vs Roma

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I gotta give it to him, James has improved quite considerably after his goal. He now looks not afraid and confident enough to take risks.

A lot of our guys feel a lot of pressure right now... they are shackled by it when we're under stress. They play free once the stress isn't there.

That's our challenge... how to get guys to forget about the outside pressure and play free regardless of the situation.

Seriously, Spalleti would probably beat Salah with a stick after this match.

Well, you can either keep waiting for those players to be world class again all while getting smashed in big games and ending up trophyless. Or, give the nod to Lucas and we might get something shiny at the end of the season.

sportsczy wrote:

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I gotta give it to him, James has improved quite considerably after his goal. He now looks not afraid and confident enough to take risks.

A lot of our guys feel a lot of pressure right now... they are shackled by it when we're under stress. They play free once the stress isn't there.

That's our challenge... how to get guys to forget about the outside pressure and play free regardless of the situation.

Not play for Real Madrid. Seriously Sports, you're being way too kind to guys who are clearly under-performing and not so kind to the one guy that really, truly should be starting in Lucas.

James and Isco have a much higher ceiling than Lucas, I would never say Lucas is a better player than those two but he really deserve to start over James. It's fairly obvious at this point.

The word ceiling is all relative. Players develop at different rates at different times.. I hate the word "ceiling"

My opinion is we have no chance to get anything shiny unless James or Isco are up to form... beating a young Digne who is an attacking fullback is one thing. Beating guys like Alaba, Alba, etc is quite another thing.

Teams will start scouting Vazquez and realize he is only looking to play outside... never play him inside like Digne did.

Lucas is absolutely fantastic. He should have started. We were never in doubt at any point in this game. I liked how we pressed till the last minute even when the tie was over

Pepe ffs Our best defender since Hierro

Navas has 2 more clean sheets left to equal VDS record.

Is hala serious about epep ?

Poor, poor performance if you ask me. We had some good attacking waves here and there, but defensively, we were very shaky. Primarily because Pepe and Ramos had a very bad game and Marcelo apparently thinks he's too big to track back. This game would've had a completely different outcome had Roma converted their clear-cut chances.

Danilo continues to impress me. His work rate is significantly higher than it used to be, he's better defensively and his crossing has improved a lot. If you ask me, he should've started at LB ahead of Marcelo with Carvajal at RB.

Lucas, three seconds into stepping into the pitch, ends Roma. We were unable to pierce their box until he came in. What a lad! I hope he keeps getting regular playing time.

Casemiro wasn't that good in the first half, but he played quite well in the second. With him on the field, Kroos was able to contribute more to our attack, which it's his bread and butter to begin with.

All and all, Z really needs to sit down in front of the fire place tonight and do some deep thinking.

What's clear is that he has no restriction to bench whoever he wants bar Ronaldo. So, keeping that in mind, he must decide whether it would be wise to keep playing these big names, who by the way, are seemingly incapable of piercing a modest Roma defense. Or, play the likes of Lucas and Casemiro and have higher chances of doing so.

Valkyrja wrote:Is hala serious about epep ?

He has a soft spot for Pepe and Di Maria. He usually gets it right though, but this time, I really don't understand why he thinks Pepe had a good night. I thought he was very bad. Ramos too.

Reminds me of the Callejon days when Ozil and Di Maria went through struggles and people were clamoring for him to start over either of those two... Callejon was a really good energy guy. He can bring a burst on an elite team as a sub and spot starter.... but we were never going to win anything unless Ozil and Di Maria were right.

Regarding the game, they created to many chances. The entire back line was bad. Marcelo was good in attack though. Kroos is useless. He's like a super poor man's Pirlo. He's not a DM and Modric, Isco and Kovacic are better offensive midfielders. Ronaldo is continuing his good form while James seemed to regain confidence after the goal. Modric is Modric, no explanation needed

sportsczy wrote:Reminds me of the Callejon days when Ozil and Di Maria went through struggles and people were clamoring for him to start over either of those two... Callejon was a really good energy guy. He can bring a burst on an elite team as a sub and spot starter.... but we were never going to win anything unless Ozil and Di Maria were right.

To be fair, Özil kept running out of breath after only 15-20 minutes on the pitch, and Di Maria was running around like a headless chicken. In- form Callejon clearly looked like the more reliable option at the time.

Valkyrja wrote:Regarding the game, they created to many chances. The entire back line was bad. Marcelo was good in attack though. Kroos is useless. He's like a super poor man's Pirlo. He's not a DM and Modric, Isco and Kovacic are better offensive midfielders. Ronaldo is continuing his good form while James seemed to regain confidence after the goal. Modric is Modric, no explanation needed

I personally don't think James played particularly well, aside from his goal. He improved after the break and stopped wasting possession needlessly, and sure, it looked like the goal gave him some confidence. Confidence is good, but I honestly think his overall performance was pretty mediocre. Would've preferred to see him subbed out for Isco. Not that it matters now.

No, sports, we're not saying that Lucas is God's chosen one. What we're saying is that whoever is playing better should start.

What we really need to focus on is the performance not the name on the back of the jersey.

And let's be honest, Lucas will sooner or later have bad games, just like he did at the beginning of the season. So will his teammates.

So the best thing to do is to always play whoever is playing better and leaving everything out on the pitch. Simple as that.

lol i knew people would get on the "i told you so" when lucas came on. but once again i'm with sports on this one, a sub appearance and a start are two very different things. its good to have someone come in and provide a spark when energy levels are down, its totally different to have said player start. once again, let me repeat, i like lucas, saw him play a bit in espanyol and since he's come here he's been doing well...its funny cos, i'm not a fan of james isco bale benz cristiano kroos or anyone else on the team for that matter. but against big sides, i don't know what kind of gamble lucas will be

this isn't to say our starters can perform against big sides, i've been their biggest critique when we blow out small teams. but to win in europe we need these guys to produce, and for the up and comers to pull off good sub appearances.
i'm all for those guys starting in la liga games, and at some point, i'm all for them pushing out the starters (probably next season even), but they've roughly had half a season of footy under their belt. i think next season they'll provide even tougher competition and get some good starts

@sports, not only callejon, at one point, there where whispers that el pirata, granero should get some starts over xabi, cos xabi was being overplayed, and he scored a late goal off the bench in an away draw...i'm all for giving these kids time and promoting competition, but let's take it easy....if we had been giving them ample minutes in the earlier part of the season, maybe by now i'd have been like "okay they can start"

oh, and my take on the game, it was an open game, and i wasn't impressed with how we approached it, i hope we don't meet any major sides in the next round

I don't want the entire squad to be replaced by Casilla, I just want Lucas to start ahead of James which, going by the latter's performance, is a sane and correct request. And I really like James, big fan of his talents.

Thimmy wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Reminds me of the Callejon days when Ozil and Di Maria went through struggles and people were clamoring for him to start over either of those two... Callejon was a really good energy guy. He can bring a burst on an elite team as a sub and spot starter.... but we were never going to win anything unless Ozil and Di Maria were right.

To be fair, Özil kept running out of breath after only 15-20 minutes on the pitch, and Di Maria was running around like a headless chicken. In- form Callejon clearly looked like the more reliable option at the time.

I agree with you... especially the "at the time" part. But do we win la decima if we hadn't insisted with Di Maria leading to his break through? Not a chance. If Callejon was playing instead of Di Maria, Carlo doesn't survive his first year at Madrid let alone win CL. People forget how comically bad we were from Sept thru Dec in Carlo's first year... Di Maria coming on and finding form (along with Benzema and Isco) turned that around for us.

@tito... you really dislike the entire team?

the team is frustrating to watch. i won't say i dislike them, its just hyperbole. what i really mean is, at this stage, and the way we're playing, i'm not entirely bothered about whoever gets sold...what bothers me more than anything is, something still tells me that these guys are better than they're actually playing. and when we sell them, they'll go to some other club and start performing to supreme levels- granted we have issues pertaining to playing players out of position, but some players even if given the right position, i don't see them improving

@doc, okay fair enough. its good to specify that it was lucas you were talking about, i was under the assumption it was lucas, mayoral, jese. btw, to my point of super-subs, jese came off the bench and scored against roma, but the next game where he started, which i believe was against malaga, did nothing. that's not to say he should never start again, i for one admire his football

back to lucas, he's a winger, if he replaces james (i agree there's a case for lucas here), he'll be played out of position. unless ofcourse we are altering the whole formation i.e. putting cristiano upfront, bale left and lucas on the right- that makes sense. when benzema returns however, i mean, whatever position james is supposed to be playing (which he's really not good at), i don't see lucas at being much better...things are just upside down

Wake me up when we beat a team worth talking about

Oh for god sakes how is it a gamble. Some of you guys are so dramatic. Nothing can be more of a gamble then staying in 3rd place, losing to any team with quality and trying the same shit over and over again.

Man up and admit Lucas has been better these past few weeks. You earn your spot, your spot isn't given to you because you need to be played into form. If that's what I'm hearing then I'm sorry but you need to get off your Fifa 16 and start watching the games. You want to motivate a player and play him into form, bench his ass and teach him a lesson


Playing a player (James) who's more interested in showing up to training overweight and getting speeding tickets then someone who bleeds for this club and has an excellent attitude is bullshit. And Lucas is simply playing better.

Also, he doesn't just cut to the inside because he also is a skilled passer. Cover his outside and he'll play a 1-2 with his movement and speed or play a cross inside

@titos last post, actually lucas does a number of things better at the moment, one of them is crossing and having more speed. I can't count the amount of times James overhit a cross today

I really don't think waiting on James to hit his stride while wasting 45 to 60 minutes of a football match is a suitable tactic for Zidane.

Lucas is doing one thing that James simply is not doing because he can't or won't and that is giving our right side actual usage other than being the part of the field that the opposition honestly knows we won't use much.

Not that James is our only issue. Marcelo is doing Marcelo things and Pepe and Ramos are in self destruct mode. Also, we have no real CF except Mayonnaise.

This is absolutely not similar to Callejon. Callejon was always scared in posession and 90% of his passes were to Arbeloa. But he made good runs and could score. Lucas is the complete opposite. He is a shat scorer but is not afraid to take on players. Both as expected run their hearts out. But I fully believe Lucas is better than Callejon no doubt about that and is more than good enough to start. Our hardest game in the opening half of the season was vs Celta who were brimming with confidence after spanking Barca. Lucas played a massive part in us beating them, then he played in the away PSG game when we suffocated them and were unlucky not to win. Fast forward and he is stll the same awesome player with a better understanding with Ronaldo

Roma werent any good at all. They reminded me of me on Fifa when i gad really crap players on ultimate team and kept playing Narsingh and Lass Bangoura and kept running but in the last instance realised they were crap at everything else and all my shots were off target and passes were intercepted. Thats dxactly what Roma did in both games. SES and Salah just ran and ran until they shat themselves in front of goal. They are a hopeless team. Even after being 2-0 down on aggregate they were happy to sit back and hit us on the counter. Meh