Celta - Real Madrid

Well in all fairness, we are doing them more harm than good in many ways. What i mean is, they dont play many games, so they are losing on chances to polish their skills while they are 19-20 kids who need that practice. And they we drop them in pressure games and we expect them to play at a high level.

It's only normal that it doesnt work, why should it? specially when you look at how productive players like Ceballos, Vallejo, Theo or Llorente were for their previous clubs. They are not all going to become world class even with more playing time, but being buried on the bench sure doesnt help.

If we want better ready back ups, then we need to sign players who are 25-26, and not young players with little experience and high potential. It should be a mix of both, with even older players, but our mistake i think was garnishing the bench with just kids last summer, and it did not work. Half of them should be going on loan next summer.

So for the defense, assuming there will be a natural progression from Theo and Achraf as back up, we could go with

Marcelo, Ramos, Varane, Carvajal
Theo, Nacho, new CB, Achraf

if you want to trust those two kids, as back up at fullback, it's fine, because with Nacho we know there is that guy with experience if things go south. But you can't have baby Vallejo too, you need a much better CB, and i think the club is looking for one. but i dont believe in signing expensive back ups like Odriozola for 40 mil when he can only play RB

I'll say this again... Zidane has no problem playing young or yet unproven players.  None.  He did it with great success last season.

The issue is that the front office picked the young players for him this season.  Namely, they forced him to use Spain U23s.  He doesn't trust them and never did... he did, however, continue to give opportunities to Kova, Vasquez and Asensio.

They lack intensity and hunger in practice according to some of the things I've heard...  it's ok and expected not to be as good as the regulars.  HOWEVER, you better bring it to the practice squad physically and mentally regardless.  None of these kids have.

Our young players are apparently very soft and some have questionable work ethic (Theo and Ceballos being the main ones in terms of the later).

Well he didn’t trust Asensio or Kovacic right away either. The difference between this season and last season is that we were really strong last season- this season we had complacent players all over the pitch and a youthful changeup that was needed never came. When Ceballos has played he’s been generally really good so I don’t understand why the trust isn’t being built.

Practice Deez...  the kids aren't doing what it takes to earn their time.  And that's been the frustrating part for the coaches (from what I heard).  There was opportunity for the kids to take time from the regulars given their form...  but they wouldn't bring it during training.  

The message has been and will always be that you earn the right to play by outplaying your competition in training.  If you don't show yourself worthy there, you won't see the pitch.  Now, they didn't even expect the kids to outplay the stars obviously... but they did expect hard work and competitiveness.

Very soft crop of young players allegedly.  They're either satisfied with merely being on the club or haven't adapted to the demands of elite football.  Level of professionalism is lacking. Look at Vasquez for example... probably the least talented of all of them. But he won't give an inch. He'll fight for everything.

Either the kids learn a valuable lesson in what it takes or they just won't be part of Real Madrid.

I don't agree with Ceballos not working hard enough. Kid whenever on the pitch runs to death even defensively.

@doc, you have mentioned end of liga season a couple of times! There still is a week left, next week in Villareal!

Re the kids on team, problem was and is that we took on too many. For sure Zidane could have done better but reality was no way could any coach give that many kids the amount of playing time they needed. I believe every one of them except Majoral and maybe Achraf have the talent, but they all desperately need playing time. I’ve said before and say again they all except possibly one or two are going out on loan or sale with backup. And Llorente given he is older than the rest will likely be sold.

this is straight speculation, i dont know who works hard in training or no, but i personally dont recall readingabout it. maybe it's out there.

but for the sake of the argument, in game effort is not the same as off game effort in training. there are guys who do not like training hard bu then work when they get on the pitch.

to sum all this up, what happened this year was basically a variation of the "zidanes y pavones", didn't worked then, and in the league it certainly didn't work now. competition is the way to go, especially as far as the league is concerned. hope we've learned our lesson.....but knowing madrid i bet we haven't

I clean forgot about Villareal, well, the messages won't change so just pretend I wrote it all that after the Villareal. Also, yeah, we haven't learned a single thing from this season. Pretty sure about that.

Mr Nick09 wrote:this is straight speculation, i dont know who works hard in training or no, but i personally dont recall readingabout it. maybe it's out there.

but for the sake of the argument, in game effort is not the same as off game effort in training. there are guys who do not like training hard bu then work when they get on the pitch.

You get the privilege (maybe) of being average in training once you've proven yourself...  not as a kid with no equity and trying to break in.

And it is speculation in the sense that I heard it second hand; but from a person very (very very) close person to David Bettoni.  The french term mentioned in terms of the kids is "suffisance".  Not sure how that translates to english.