I couldn't disagree more. If we played like Pep's Bayern it would be another story, but we didn't play that beautifully.

sportsczy wrote:How many clear chances did Espanyol have Doc? 1 on Pepe's mistake. That's it.

If you don't concede, you have a lot better chance of taking points away from a game.

I get the pragmatic approach. I have no qualms with the pragmatic approach. I like the pragmatic approach as long as it suits us in the short and long run but you really think that was a good first half of football by us?

I ain't being a dick or condescending or even unfair in my thoughts but it honestly was not good even with a lowered expectation of what I wanted to see.

Mandatory statement of Marcelo would cause me to get very ill.

Yep, the first few games of Zidane were just hgh tempo, nothing to do with somekind of super offense. Everyone was just happy and motivated again.

Your excuses and bias have hit an all-time high, sports.

Jesus, mate, this is Espanyol. Even Rafa attacked them and hit them with 6.

Besides, we're not even demanding that z produces beautiful football. We only want to see our team attack and create chances. We've been locked in our own half by Espanyol, and you want to justify this?!

Come on man, if you have low standards, that's your thing. But Z must murder this Espanyol side if he wants to have our respect.

This garbage performance is unworthy of this shirt.

Zidane studied Pep and Bielsa for this

This is Di Matteo level coaching. How far can talent difference take? When an equally talented team face us it is going to be interesting battle.

No...  we played a high line.  Our back 4 and midfielders played 15-20 meters higher up the pitch when we didn't have the ball.

Anyhow, this is getting tiresome as usual. Real madrid fans are reknown to be some of the shittiest and unsupportive ones in the world and it's no different here

So we are playing somekind of 4411 to give freedom to James, no thank you, some kind of high level garbage formation where james and benzema do nothing off the ball. such shit stuff

sportsczy wrote:No...  we played a high line.  Our back 4 and midfielders played 15-20 meters higher up the pitch when we didn't have the ball.

Anyhow, this is getting tiresome as usual. Real madrid fans are reknown to be some of the shittiest and unsupportive ones in the world and it's no different here

I have already told you, playing juego de position has nothing to do with the D line being high. you keep ignoring that, it's ok

of course it does.  You need tight player gaps to play that way.  You can't ask the forwards and mids to track back to a low line to maintain the needed gap. You'd burn them out. That's why I'm ignoring you.

And why are you saying we are unsupportive? we are here watching the games week to week, it's disrespectful. I support RM as much as anyone here, i just call it as i see it. We play poorly.

edit: then sports you have no clue what juego de posicion is then, maybe you should read up a bit, instead of acting as if you have it all figured out.

Italy for example is a team that has some very high concepts of what positional football is, yet they play defensive, oh well,

We're playing better now. Let's hope we continue like this.

Nice goal from teamplay, finally.

Benzema

That's the idea...  most La Liga teams play a high pressure, high energy style and burn themselves out around the 60-65 min mark.  RM plays a consistent style that tends to struggle offensively until the spaces open up (we don't have the midfielders that can individually break the pressure).  But it's defensively very solid always.

We just plug away and keep our discipline until the opportunities present themselves for our midfielders to pass the ball to our forwards.

can someone tell me who the hell ramos thinks he is? i don't want him standing over our free kicks when someone like kroos is playing

I call it Ramos time. It is when all logic and sense throws itself off a cliff and Ramos believes he can accomplish anything, anywhere, anytime.

He also is captain so he probably pulled the captain card.

three points in the bag; slow and steady

What can I say? Dreadful first half, much better second half. We clearly still have problems getting into games, which is a serious problem.

Still, it was nice seeing the team score from open play for once.

As for youyou sports, I hope you were kidding when you said we are not supportive. We try not to be biased and call it like it is. When we play poorly we make sure to point it out, and when we play well we clap for our team. But don't expect us to lie to ourselves, make up ridiculous excuses and live in our own delusion. You don't want that.

We love Real Madrid and we'll continue to support this club even when Z is long gone. And we'll make sure to always call it like it is.

Happy for the win, unsatisfied with the performance, and looking forward to improving.

Better second half. Controlled the tempo and kept a clean sheet. Job done

I haven't looked at stats but Espanyol were fouling us left and right and Diop got a yellow deep into the second half having gone through 60mins hacking at our players yet when Carvajal got the ball cleanly he was yellow carded

I can't complain about yellows since Ramos could have easily seen a double yellow in that 1st half. As usual, I gotta wait till March to see him get his act together.

Any news on Casemiro?

Not sure if anyone noticed... but our defense remained solid even after Casemiro went out. One big reason is that ZZ made the fullbacks stay at home. It made for a rough offensive showing in the first half. But it also allowed us to remain solid.

Once Espanyol got tired and we could move up the pitch as a block since they were playing far lower, our offense was able to open up.

Patient playing.

if or when we start dropping points, or if/when i notice we are dropping points to big sides whilst stat-padding against smaller sides, i'll start scrutinizing zidane. i know, madrid fans want a showcase, well, i want maximum points first. maximum points and discipline. as a matter of fact, i hope we can become a solid defensive unit more than this thing of beautiful football. my only disappointment is that now casemiro's injured we'll have to put someone who isn't stellar defensively in that role. and with a transfer ban in place we can't make any hasty move in the winter....hope he's not out for too long

Mr Nick09 wrote:So we are playing somekind of 4411 to give freedom to James, no thank you, some kind of high level garbage formation where james and benzema do nothing off the ball. such shit stuff

You literally don't know what your talking about, stop kidding yourself just butthurt the players you want to fail aren't failing at all, benzema started 2 attacking moves and scored from one of them, and pull off magnificent volley give up on tactics and players your awful at it.

Tito what most Madrid want are certain players to be benched or play like poor mans barca, to ever feel good about team, its only when the team wins a trophy everybody wants to support the team its disgusting tbh.

i damn near lost my mind when i saw ramos and marcelo standing over that freekick. ramos has scored some i know, but damn, marcelo? when kroos is playing those two shouldn't be anywhere close to anything set-piece related. i've seen ramos use the 'ramos time' approach to even get cristiano to step aside and let him hit one....as much as i've criticized some of cristiano's free kicks, i'd rather have him take 30 in a row, than have mr ramos even take 1....

not to mention marcelo. when marcelo can put in some good high crosses, then he can stand close to whoever wants to take a free kick. and when he defends better, the squad can allow him take one in a kings cup game against a small side when we are already like 4 goals ahead