Athletic Bilbao vs Real Madrid

December is going to be the make or break in our LaLiga pursuit. We are playing Bilbao away, then go to play that God forsaken CWC followed by Barca straight after. Since we have no room for error we have to win every single game before the break. Barca dont look like they'll be losing points so we have to keep up and look to cut the leadn the Clasico

Most of the injured players are back. The only injured ones right now are Luca and Bale

The line up picks itself. Let's hope Ronaldo finally gets going. His drought has gone on long enough

ZZ on Bale

"I don't think it's a mental problem, it's a small issue, a nuisance, but since he's been out a long time it's complicated," Zidane told the assembled media on Friday.

"I hope it's just a physical issue and that it's just annoying. It's a problem with his calf and we don't want to risk it.

"It all depends on him, I cannot give a return date. I hope it's next week."

I think Bale isn't happy in Madrid. Your mental health plays a big role in your physical health, and if you can't manage both it basically gets very hard to manage one.

Zidane can't for obvious reasons come out and say anything different, but sad to see him so unhappy in Madrid. I think the language barrier was too much for him maybe.

Bale has been injury prone his entire career (was he unhappy in England too?), I don't think we can start making sweeping assessments about his level of enjoyment unless he is saying he is unhappy, which he hasn't.

He never was this amount of injury prone.

This is just too much.

EDIT: Could also just be frustration from being injured all the time in your prime career

He's getting older. At this point in his career we can't expect these muscular injuries to improve. He's not going to move back to England and be magically healed.

Unless it really is our medical staff that is the problem, which it very well may be. Varane, and Carvajal in particular suffer from similar issues.

Why are guys always after the medical staff? First off, they were replaced in past two years.

But more importantly, why we questioning the conditioning, both the coaches and players? The medical staff would be resonsible for the injury treatment but are they also responsible for the recovey conditioning?

I think a lot of this is on player himself.

And re Carvajal, yes he had a problem last year, but this year was a a serious virus infection, nothing related to past injuries nor general health.

Re Carvajal - I didn't intend to lump the heart condition in. I'm purely talking about muscular issues. He missed 9 matches last season, and 19 the year before.

That is quite significant IMO, it's not like he has only had 1 injury prone season, so if you are saying it is on the player mostly, you also have to blame Carvajal.

Seeing a big stupid draw and me complaining about Benzema.

ffs Bale.

Honestly, I won't miss him. Been years since I've noticed he was on our team.

But according to his agent he is on the same level as Ramos and Ronaldo

Doc wrote:Seeing a big stupid draw and me complaining about Benzema.

Honestly, if that useless nuisance doesn't run his heart out tonight, especially after Barcelona draw, he should be escorted outside and shot.

Why escort him? just shoot him (and then p*** on him)

Okay our best chances so far has been in the air so we need to use our aerial advantage to capitalize on the Barca draw today!

Marcelo is a freakijg disaster. He is not even trying

Doc wrote:Seeing a big stupid draw and me complaining about Benzema.

Instead of Benzema, it's Ronaldo and Ramos. Sigh.

So embarrassing.

Useless subs. CM for AM, tame Benz for an even tamer Mayoral

Feck this. If we can we should 0-0 our way to a CL because we are not winning the league this season

If only we could sign Fekir, all our troubles would go away

Ok let's pull the Napoli card and claim that we're purposely sabotaging our league campaign to focus solely on the CL.

What was our record by the time we reached december with Benitez

Clutch wrote:What was our record by the time we reached december with Benitez

for sure better than this, after 14 games: 9 wins, 2 losses, 3 draws.

this is our worst la liga start since 08-09  under schuster lol

Among the few things I dislike of what Zidane does, I really hate this version of the 4-4-2. You know, the one without actual wingers. Actually, I have no idea what exactly we are playing. Is it a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3? Also, the subs were absolutely late in the dance, as per usual but Ramos really takes the cake. Again.

Why would you do the exact thing you got yellow for...again?!

Doc wrote:Among the few things I dislike of what Zidane does, I really hate this version of the 4-4-2. You know, the one without actually wingers. Actually, I have no idea what exactly we are playing. Is it a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3? Also, the subs were absolutely late in the dance, as per usual but Ramos really takes the cake. Again.

Why would you do the exact thing you got yellow for...again?!

shut up Doc, you criticizing a two times CL champion, i hope RG bans you for a week for such blasphemy

He is an airhead that's why. And to top it all off, instead of running off the pitch he wastes a good 2 minutes bitching about it with the referee

Our lack of goals from our strikes is seriously concerning. It's December and they have 2 goals apiece. It's ridiculous