I call the other Doc "The Eternal Optimist".

When you see The Eternal Optimist freak out as well, know that you're in a real crisis

This is a team that was up for every big match last season. Now they can't beat the big teams or the small teams. I understand that some of the motivation must have been lessened, but to this degree is ridiculous. I can't think of a single redeemable player in the starting XI

What do you even do in this situation? Zidane has better figure out a way to motivate the players or he will be on the way out soon.

nothing, we basically cornered ourselves to ride and die with this team, i dont think you can do much mid season.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:I call the other Doc "The Eternal Optimist".

When you see The Eternal Optimist freak out as well, know that you're in a real crisis

Pretty obvious this is not looking good. Been a Madrid fan way too long to not see the signs and I am sure Zidane sees it too. He has to, his job is the one on the line, not mine.

Funnily enough, when it comes our midfield and left back, we actually have some very talented men who can replace them. Easily.

yup, very little can be done midseason. we got cocky, competition within the squad might have helped in terms of keeping players alert but we basically weakened the squad and brought in lesser players lol.....only in madrid. at least, a result like this means flo will already start preparing plans for summer and won't wait till the last minute to negotiate things.....who am i kidding? this is madrid, we like to make things unnecessarily interesting.....i'll post my comments about the game on the other thread

The more I think about it, and despite Isco being one of the best of a bad bunch, we need to sacrifice Isco and go back to a more traditional 443. Start Vazquez for all I care, play Ceballos over one of Kroos or Modric (both were shocking yesterday).

Either do that or quadruple down on this midfield overload idea and play with 5 midfielders in a Christmas tree formation.

Ronaldo
Isco Ceballos
Kroos Casemiro Modric

What do you guys think? Back to 433, or change to something entirely different? This 442 Zidiamond has obviously been figured out, and though it’s not the only problem, changing formation and rotating personnel is about all we can do until January.

I don't think Zidane knows who Ceballos is.

There's a balance to be played at Madrid more than any other club... between the club, the media, the egos and the performance.

There's no way in the world you can bench Ramos, Marcelo, Ronaldo, Kroos and Modric. It would splinter the locker room. It's shame that all these guys have been woeful this season.

As far as Benzema, Nacho and Ashraf... who would you bring in? Our bench is complete shit this season.

The only solution is for the veterans to step up. I don't see any other feasible solution out there.

And it has nothing to do with scheme or tactics. They were just fine on our way to 2 CLs and a La Liga in the last 18 months. It's about desire and execution.

when is kovacic coming back?

terrance511 wrote:when is kovacic coming back?

Can't wait to watch him not play.

atleast zidane have some faith in kovacic, he will see play, dono what his problem with ceballos....

only ramos and ronaldo are unbenchable, if zidane best attribute is man managing, he should be able to do sth on this, rotate the *bleep* out unmotivated player, that will send a msg. fringe player should see more times, aint what they for in these situation? if their skillset are not convincing enough, how about play them vs 'lesser' team like girona, to gain some form or confidence? atleast it setup sth for future match, instead of every week running into same dead end.

Yeah, only Ronaldo and Ramos I see as unbenchable. The rest are up for grabs including Marcelo. Actually, he was benched under Carlo for this very same reason. Anyway, all this supposed manmanagement skills would be needed because Modric is really having a bad season, Marcelo moves like he doesn't care and Benzema is fking disgusting.

I just can't understand. This is the very same group of players who toyed with Barca and United 2 months ago. What is happening

Players get complacent and aren't as willing to work anymore.
It's so obviously the problem. Every single undisputed starter from the last two seasons are lazy and can't play well at all.

Only player that is good every game at the moment is Isco because he's still hungry to prove himself.

The only way you can keep players from becoming to pleased with themselves is to bench them once in a while. But we never do that. Kroos has been horrible 10 games in a row and Ceballos hasn't played in a game since scoring two goals and singlehandedly winning a game for us.

I have no idea how a player can give the best performance of any player on our team this season and then not play another game.

There has to be more to this than poor motivation. It's not just the veterans that played poorly, it was every player out there both yesterday and last weekend. Did you see the ratings for this last game. They ranged from 2 to 6. Ronaldo had the 6, next highest was 4 which was the number assigned to most of squad (including Zidane). The 2 was Benzema. As someone mentioned above this same group of players looked unbeatable in August against Barca and Man U. Isn't motivating a skill, this perfect man manager should have? Have they lost all desire in just 2 months? The tactics definitely are not working. Every single counter by Tottenham gave us fits yesterday and our offense seldom penetrated their box. Are we supposed to have a coach would can implement tactics to resolve these issues?

As I have said many time before Zidane is in complete charge here, including prospective signings (and dismissals). He alone is accountable for this.

But knowing Real M, the likely outcome is a trophyless season, Zidane retained and a wholesale revamp of team. I can see Sports (and Chad) being elated with the dismissal of Ronaldo, Bale, Kroos, Modric, Isco, Ramos, Marcelo and several of the Spanish kids and the entire French NT coming in to replace them!

Angry over losing to pitiful Spurs yet calm.

Like I said. Just need to grit teeth. Tottenham didn't win because they were better, we only lost as we weren't focused.

Blaming Zidane over variables that are very hard to overturn even for the most experienced and capable of coaches is not the most reasonable way to go about things nor is it sensible. Then again I do not expect such from this fanbase. Should he have reinforced? Probably but it's not like we didn't try. PSG foiled our summer. Get over it.

While I didn't enjoy losing to a subpar English rag of misfits, the lack of focus and complacency the team showed was not lost on me.. make no mistake, had we played at full strength, we'd crush Spurs. But we haven't been playing at full strength for some time now.

While I did expect us to lose against Spurs given the complacency having crept upon our team like the plague, even I am not certain how long will this last. For in the case of our forwards, complacency is not the only concern.

Still nothing new for me. Only thing that is happening is results confirming my suspicions from my old thread the past 2 seasons.

You have Nacho and Ashraf on one side... and the incredible defensive pairing of Ramos and Marcelo on the other.

The defensive problems were inevitable.  Defensively, the talent on our defense is pub league level.  Even with Varane, Ashraf and Marcelo just can't defend while Ramos is inconsistent.

Losing Carvajal was a major problem.  So was losing Pepe.

I really don't see an easy fix here.  You're only as strong as your weakest link... and we have too many weak links right now.

And again, we really don't have a strong bench unlike the past two seasons. Other than Ceballos, which I agree with, we have literally nobody on defense or the attack we can rely upon. Not sure about rotation being a solution this season.

Also, Ceballos isn't beating anyone in training believe it or not. That's why he's not playing. From what I heard, they want him to commit more to the process of preparing for games... hence his benching.

Also, if our forwards were halfway respectable, Marcelo would like have gotten some bench time. But as it is, we can't score.

Given the many issues... the best solution really is to play deep and counter. But would anyone in Madrid accept that?

And btw, I think that you either need to recycle players or the coach every 2-3 years. That's just how it works if you're a big team. Players get bored and tune out the manager or feel a sense of entitlement. I'm not saying we should go back out our previous insanity in terms of annual transfers. But we do need to make impact changes every 2-3 years to make sure that everyone knows that their job is always on the line.

First in line is Benzema for this. Second is Marcelo. Third is a midfielder. The first two is just because they are lazy and entitled... the third is for the weakness in the midfield I've been talking about for eons... when the going gets tough with the strikers, you must have a midfielder that can break lines and participate in the scoring on a as-needed basis. Our 3 CMs cannot provide that.

Deez is spot on about the formation. 4312 isn't going to cut in today's game, not with this squad. We are basically asking our fullbacks to become wingers and do all the creating from wings. We need width badly and we need proper wingers. This is one reason why we need bale badly. Entire right wing is a joke right now. Achraf alone there trying to create something out of nothing and we blame him for doing nothing in attack , wait what.

Zidane need to go back to basics. Play some wingers for a change. Ask Ronaldo to play wide, or drop benzenma and play Asensio as RW. Whatever it takes we are not seeing the benefit of having two strikers.. Then why continue with it?

again, you can't play that simple formation with Ashraf/marcelo as the fullbacks and Nacho as one of the CBs. The whole problem is that our defensive talent is awful right now. Need to compensate.

If Ashraf wasn't protected a bit in that Spurs game... we concede 4 goals in the first 30 mins. That's how bad he was. I won't even talk about Marcelo as he was the culprit on so many goals and near goals that it's not even worth discussing.

I was all for giving Achraf his chance but he is not cut out for this level.

I persoanlly dont know why i wasn't more concerned before with how young our back ups are. I know i spoke about Vallejo, i think the guy got a red card in his first game lol, because of guys like Morata or Carvajal, we now think anything coming out of Castilla is gold, or any young player we sign will become world class.

With time passing the last mercato looks worse and worse.

I have not talked about this before but i have a feeling Zidane does not like Llorente much.

You know, with the exception of Turok's line that Spurs weren't better than us (they were, very disrespectful of you to say that and I HATE Spurs. Like for at least a decade now), you guys (including Turok) actually making some nice points.

My question is, from our own viewings and knowledge of the club and how it reacts, what you guys think would really take place? Be it in the January window or next summer.

what i think will really take place depends on;
the next couple of games, so from now till jan, its most likely the club will not sign anyone, cos guys are injured and two, when you sign players in january its tough to commit to them especially if you're going to go on a spending spree in the summer. i think they'll wait till summer

another thing to consider is results in games like atleti which is not far from now, the el clasico , throw valencia in there too cos of their form and the other group stage ucl games.....i don't think flo will treat zidane like rafa, but considering we are 8 points behind zidane will be desperately in need of results in those games before xmas

the final point is summer- the results of the season will determine the next course of action. i get the feeling flo will want to shake things up. this time last season, i thought it was painfully obvious we had to, i didn't expect an influx of youngsters and all. but i think regardless of how the season turns out he has started making inquiries

but yeah i doubt we will do anything in january unless some major injury happens....ego and pride are at stake, it will pretty much mean that management confesses to goofing up in the summer and don't really trust the side. as i said at the start of the season, we just have to roll with the punches and see what gives. hard for me to pin it down on tactics and all that. there's a middle ground when it comes to keeping the locker room happy vs not creating tension. you can keep them happy and still promote competition, obviously injuries haven't helped. but some players just look too relaxed out there......unrelated to this topic, marcelo is NO Carlos