The Madrid One wrote:With the little he played today as a LAM he has proved to me more than Llorente or Ceballos have in all their appearances. This kid has more potential than Kroos. Fact.

He looked good, MTO, but let's not go overboard.

Your comparison to Llorente and Ceballos is invalid as all three play different roles.
Llorente is the DM, while Ceballos is a backup to Modric and you are right re Llorente the backup to Kroos. Ceballos has been playing really well this year.

It's pretty well accepted here that this squad has to many kids. Lopetequi has no confidence at all in Vallejo and Llorente. Only out of duress has he played Odriozola and Reguilion. And he has been very limiting to both  Vinicius and Fede. I believe Vinicius, Fede and Odriozola deserve more playing time, but like Zidane last year in these desperate times, you can't really blame the coach for wanting to stay with more experienced players. If Flo had done his job and brought in the players requested by Lopetequi (a central, a midfielder and LB as well as a "scorer"), then Llorente, Vallejo and Reguilion wouldn't be on this team and perhaps even Fede and Vinicius.

As it stands now, Lopetequi will probably not be here after Christmas, and a new coach may get that scorer but the kids will still be here and the new coach will probably restrict their playing time even more.

So we are left until next summer, and we have to wait and see what Flo will do. Don't hold your breath!

sportsczy wrote:I honestly feel bad for Lope Bill... he left a great job with Spain NT for this...  wonder if he was misled.  Hope not.

Yeah, me too. His coming to Madrid cost us greatly re world cup and being essentially a rookie club coach, he had no clout with Flo.

what I can’t understand is how things have gone so bad when they looked so good earlier. What I see missing is the team press, the creativity and shots being taken from all over the place. these elements were first and foremost when they played well, and have literally disappeared. For this I blame the players!

When I look at this season, I blame

1. Flo - for total lack of signings. I don’t blame him for signing Vinicius, Rodrygo nor for not signing someone for 200M with what was available. But he is at fault for not signing a proven scorer, a central, a LB and a midfielder. With those changes the squad wouldn’t be burden with too many youngsters and would have resulted in less dependence on Benz and Bale.

2. Blame the vets on team for not buying into the team press, the team defense and the unpredicability of where shots will come from that is an important element to Lopetequi’s change of tiki taca.

3. Lopetequi for not making adjustments.

So yes, we can feel sorry for Lopetequi. He went from being a promising  coach that managed to change the predicable Spanish possession game to a finished coaching career in less than 6 months.