why is it that we have our best run in CL in 50 years, winning 3 in the past 4-5 years, while we have one of the most mediocre run in la liga?

How do we explain that?

Nothing is lost. We were down 7 or 8 points come the end of February two seasons ago and lost the league by 1 point. Barcelona will not keep up this pace and Ronaldo will eventually wake up.

Mr Nick09 wrote:why is it that we have our best run in CL in 50 years, winning 3 in the past 4-5 years, while we have one of the most mediocre run in la liga?

How do we explain that?

you are a cup team like Arsenal

winning ucl is not a "cup" unlike arsenal....that aside,
there's cause to panic, its a ten point gap and they've got dembele injured, suarez off form for the last few months, what happens when they all get back? they won't always win, but will WE always win? that to me is the bigger question. with regards la liga we don't control our fate, 10 points in november.

and another question is will we always have players fit? we still have to travel for that useless world club cup. 10 point gap means we have to be perfect, not near perfect but perfect for the remainder of the season, and must always be injury free, which is impossible since we have bale. and even if we're perfect till the end, the league can still be lost.

the only positive from this rubbish is i expect we will not be passive in the summer window. 10 points smh in november

Mr Nick09 wrote:why is it that we have our best run in CL in 50 years, winning 3 in the past 4-5 years, while we have one of the most mediocre run in la liga?

How do we explain that?

I feel that this can't be explained with one single thing, there is a whole polycausality at play here, ranging all the way from luck in draws to referee favouritism

Barcelona showed weakness earlier this season. and we roasted them in the super cup. at the very minimum while they do have the form on their side, they're not unbeatable. if we play to our true strength, we're the top team around.

They will slip eventually. in the meantime, we have more pressing matters, best not pay attention to the points and be more concerned with ourselves first. la liga ain't over but we do need to step up immediately. our form is bleeding into the CL in a bad way. I'm more concerned with that than the league.

Turok_TTZ wrote:Barcelona showed weakness earlier this season. and we roasted them in the super cup. at the very minimum while they do have the form on their side, they're not unbeatable. if we play to our true strength, we're the top team around.

They will slip eventually. in the meantime, we have more pressing matters, best not pay attention to the points and be more concerned with ourselves first. la liga ain't over but we do need to step up immediately. our form is bleeding into the CL in a bad way. I'm more concerned with that than the league.

They have to slip a bare minimum of 4 times, meanwhile we have to be perfect.

If I was a betting man, I would say it is not likely to happen that way.

and we were expected to roast the league after roasting barcelona. things sometimes don't go our way. the same applies to all Vandeez. Misfortune will come for Barcelona as it has come to us. just not right now.

this isn't just about misfortune going barca's way. 10 points is massive. every game should have been a final at like 5 points. we need to win every game going forward INCLUDING beating them home and away; a draw will do nothing, and a loss in the first leg could ultimately see the manager fired

there is a lack of urgency, every game should be a final going from the first minute; meaning, we need marcelo to actually play defense; we need ramos not to lose his head and get suspended going forward cos we can't afford to have players out; varane needs to not get injured for the remainder of the year, if possible; modric needs to shape up, cristiano needs to start scoring, mr modern cf needs to stop hiding under the guise of "i create space (which really is, i get out of the way and do nothing but 1-2s)" and actually score

the only consistent squad member is bale, cos we all know he'll be injured in no time, we at least know what to expect. this is just damn sad. cos based on our results, the gap can get even bigger.

what bothers me isn't that our guys can't pick up form. at some point they'll get it, but ten points behind, we can't even afford any minor injuries, and you know how we deal with those. its extremely difficult to be optimistic about any of this, and hoping barca drop points doesn't help, its not like we're hoping for them to drop a measly 4 points

Of course, Turok is ignoring the fact Barcelona, since Pep took over has been incredibly consistent in the league for years and this year ain't no different. Their football isn't exactly pleasing anymore but they are winning which is normal for them.

They simply don't justdrop points in league play and a ten point deficit in November is absolutely difficult to even catch up to far less surpass. One of the hallmarks of last season is that Madrid simply matched their consistency in the league. We won matches we were "suppose" to win and when Barcelona dropped points, we won.

And just like that, 8 points back and a classico to come.  Assuming we stay at 8, we win the classico and we're at 5 going into the break (it's at the Bernabeu). We match up well against Barca, so I don't see why not. Key is to have CR on decent form. Pretty sure he'll crank it up a notch for a classico anyhow.

Doomsday in November is pretty ridiculous.

not ridiculous when you are eight points behind and you still assume we will win all of our games when we dont look that much better form wise

I'm not assuming anything.  Every team goes through a couple of rough patches every season...  even the great teams.  We had ours early.  Barca will have its troubles at some point as well.  With Suarez being absolute crap, you can't expect Messi to carry them all season... he was incredible to start the year.  He can't keep that up and he hasn't.    

A season isn't 3 months... it's 9 months.

If we were 8 points back and had already played both classicos + in March, I'd be more concerned.  But 8 back in late Nov with 2 classicos ahead... there's nothing to even ponder at this point.

Thing with teams playing pressure defense and constant movement... it takes a toll.  Almost every Barca team I can remember started seasons very very fast and then hit a wall in the new year as they physically got tired... and then picked it back up late.  Barca isn't a deep team and relies on its starting 11. We're not all the deep this season either... but we rotate more regardless and our style isn't as physically taxing.

If we pick up Alexis Sanchez, Fekir or Icardi in the winter (we won't), we win La Liga. Only reason we're behind is that our strikers can't the broad side of a barn all season.

There's nothing to be optimistic about right now. They didn't drop points against newly promoted Girona or Betis at home, they dropped points against the still-undefeated Valencia at the freaking Mestalla. They didn't even lose to them, and we're the ones celebrating?!

The title race is over in Spain, you better let that reality sink in before it hits you like a hurricane in May.

Alexis is a legit world class player, that you put him in the same sentence as Fekir, makes me laugh, another french player you overrate.

"if we sign Fekir we win la liga" lmao

Likewise for Icardi, he is in great form right now, finishing well, but im not a fan

We're still 8 points behind and Barcelona got credible draws away from home against Atleti and Valencia. The doom and gloom is still there, maybe just doom and not the gloom. Don't really see any reason to be optimistic about winning the league.

Just hoping for better form from our players and Zidane to learn from continuous errors.

this is the state of us this season: celebrating Barca drawing against the second best team in the league, while we lose at home against one of the top 3 worst team in the league. we are 8 points away, and we need to sign Fekir to save the season and to win the title aka french Messi

Yeah, it's still over. Even if we were to win home and away El Clasicos (big if), we would still be 2 points shy asking them to lose 1 more match than us.

Considering we are still only showing minor improvements and not the big improvements we need, we are still more likely to drop points here and there than Barca.

You guys really don't remember how far ahead we were under Carlo until we lost the league... or how far behind we were 2 years ago until we fell short by 1 point... etc.

Come on people. The lack of belief with this fanbase is depressing. You guys sound like Newcastle fans... and they have reason to be pessimistic.

you talk about two campaigns that we lost, how is that supposed to make us feel optimistic?

As entertaining as it was to watch us cut those point deficits, we still ended up losing those league titles. Just keeping my expectations in check, sure, I don't mind dare to dream but it's kinda shitty we are in even in this position in the 1st place.

Ditto Doc and Nick's points, also need to mention that Barca now have an extremely pragmatic manager who I feel is much less likely to lose points than Luis Enrique.

Barca could depend on a prime Messi with a secondary scorer to get him through... and sometimes 3.  Not to mention Xavi and Iniesta.  It was David Villa, Pedro, Alexis Sanchez, Neymar, Suarez, etc.  Now, there's nobody since Suarez is basically the same as Benzema this season.  It's all on Messi.  There isn't even a dominant midfield with Xavi and Iniesta... they're both gone.

It's been a superhuman effort by messi so far.  That won't last.  He'll hit a wall for a couple of months because that's just football.  When he does hit that wall, nobody is there in this team to pick up the slack.  And they have absolutely no depth.

You can quote me...  Barca will lose at least 4 more games in La Liga and get 4 more draws.  In the final 25 games, they will win 17, lose 4 and draw 4 AT BEST.  That's 20 points left on the table.  We just need to win 20, lose 2 and draw 3 to end the season.  Totally doable.  We're winning both classicos... or 1 win and a draw...  so we'll hold the tiebreaker.

90-95 points will win La Liga.  We won it with 93 points last season.  Barca won it with 91 the year before.  Barca won it with 94 the year before that.  Atleti won it with 90 before that.

Pretty clear what the point target needs to be for us.  I don't see Barca being better than what they leage winner has been for the past 5 years.

Instead of focusing on anyone else... we just need to focus on getting our point total as close to 95 points as possible. Football will take care of the rest like every season.