Celta were crossing or trying to make quick linkup plays a ton to take advantage of our crap wide defense.  They would start in, suck in our defense there and then push it wide.  A lot of those plays don't show up statistically because they ended up getting deflected before they reached the final player or the final pass was just poor.

The thing that stood out for me statistically was that we had 496 total passes and Celta had 429.  That's pretty close.

Also, we averaged 5 passes per possession while Celta averaged 4...  again, that's not that far off.

Possession was 56% for Madrid to 44% to Celta... again very close.

We weren't controlling anything.  The shot statistics are more a testament that we have better execution at the end of plays compared to Celta, which goes without saying.  It also shows that our last defenders did a good job to abort things at the end. It says nothing about what happened in the middle of the pitch.

All the stats I mentioned above are indicative of play in the middle of the pitch...

Those passing stats may be linked in with the abysmal pass accuracies of our players. For example Marcrlo who is normally very good in posession had 75% PA, the forward line had around 70ish too. That's very low, alot of the bad passes were unforced as well, Casemiro who most say falters under pressure had 93% PA so either Casemiro has magically become good on the ball or certain players had absolute stinkers. Celta were crap, can't even remember them pinning us back in our half apart from in the last 10 minutes. If Morata had scored his 1v1 we would have talked about how comfortable this game was because before that it was us trying to score and Celta wasting time

Even against LaReal it was 56-44% posession in our favour and LaReal were awful. We aren't Barca so we wont get 70% but we aren't Atleti either, we are somewhere in the middle so we will always have around 50-65% posession which is fine as long as we make good use of the ball when we have it

Under Zidane our passing % has been abysmal.

But I agree with halamadrid2 100%. Casemiro did some nice 1 touch passing and stuff, and both Modric and Kroos performed well

With more time passing we see what type of coach Zidane is (to be frank after his first month i could tell).

Focusing on things like passing %, possession control, organized team pressing is a waste of time. He is not that type of coach, he is like a Conte, he is a proud son of Ancelotti. He believes in the running working hard together and running in unison to beat they other team. I wont call him a mental guru per say, but his single greatest contribution was unifying the players to his cause, rather than designing complicated team pressing or passing schemes ala guardiola.

With Zidane around we wont necessarily see the team dominating possession, but we will see them working hard and be resolute in winning all games they play. It's working so far. But the whole "he went to study guardiola, and bielsa" and all of that is bullshit, his team plays nothing like that style.

His best and most important signing so far this summer is Pintus, who is getting this team ready to outrun anyone they can against.

Difference in the LaReal game was the we made 555 total passes compared to 447 for LaReal.  We were more clinical with our finishing in that game too.

But we weren't that great against LaReal either imo in the middle of the pitch.  Better...  but not very good.

I just don't think our midfield is well balanced.  Modric has to come back to his top level for it to work good enough.

As long as our defense holds tight in the middle and pushes the attacks wide, we'll minimize the number of shots we face... and that's exactly what ZZ has done.  Casemiro is there for this reason.  But our attack and midfield passing play will suffer as a result.

@Nick...  I think ZZ is playing it safe because the jury is still out on him.  He tried to play an expansive attacking style his first month to 6 weeks on the job but it didn't work and the wolves were already out.  He even said at the time that he didn't know if he'd be here next season.  He adjusted.  If he has another successful season, he may become more of a risk taker.  

At this point, he's applying the most pragmatic style of player given the players we have...  namely, as you mentioned, be in excellent physical condition, play compact on defense and fight hard.  He's relying on our individual talent and work rate to score goals.

I agree with Nick, ZZ isn't a tactician, what he does have is good rapport with the players. Players run that extra mile for him. I have lost count on the number of late goals we have scored under him. I don't care about having alot of posession as long as we are solid as a unit. For example I loved last weeks game and we only had 56% posession. But LaReal couldn't get to our box and when we did have the ball we attacked with purpose knowing exactly what we had to do. Imagine obsessing about posession stats like VanGaal's UTD

We really can watch the same match and see different things. Hala says Kroos had a good match. In my view, Kroos was pretty much non-existent for at least 45 minutes. Swear I saw him once in the first half and only because I happen to see his no. 8 jersey.

Second half he was more on the ball and more willing to show his presence. In any case, I reckon the team underestimated Celta, I and all did hence the rather insipid performance. Except Ramos and Marcelo, this is just business as usual with those two.

I thought the first half was an embarrassment tbh. It was basically Modric vs everyone. Celta did not attack and our players were passing it back to our defenders all the time. I thought we started to get going in the second half and that coincided with Kroos getting more on the ball and generally being a leader. Attack was similarly subdued apart from Morata who picked it up slightly but Kroos became more involved and we started to create more chances

Celta were man marking everyone past ramos and varane lol it was pretty touch for them to move the ball up the pitch. Kudos to Celta, we wont play 5 teams man marking the hell out of our players like that this season.

Which is kind of smart when you think about it Nick. Other than Modric when he's fit, none of the other guys have the ability to really beat their guy. If I'm the opponent, I take note and copy this tactic until Madrid beat it.

We already did but I get what you mean. I agree it's a good tactic to use against us but the team will tire out in the second half due to the constant running and we have a strong enough bench to punish that

Not to mention that tactically it's not easy to pull off, it takes organization and fitness. Celta running like this so early in the season shows how prepared they are. In second half they did not really tire out.

What i thought was disappointing was not having someone off the bench who can tussle and run, i really dont like us not getting a back up box to box/DM to cover Casemiro, specially in a game like this where we could have brought him on to win some duels in midfield.

By the way, Marcos Llorente was sublime for Alaves today

I thought we needed someone like Kova yesterday to break lines with his quick burst of speed, too bad he is a door knob and can't be trusted yet or Isco who could dribble out of pressure. We just needed to calmly work our way out of their marking which we couldn't do. The only midfielder that could dribble had no problems with the man marking him, Kova or Isco would've been sublime but they come with their own share of downsides

Yepp i saw the game. He looks comfortable and brave out there. He was basically doing the Casemiro role with the added dribbling/better passing. Still want him to attack more since he has a mean right foot