Im not sure this idea of having a caretaker for the team until the summer just to hire Pochettino is a good idea. we need a real coach.

It might just be enough time to demonstrate to Flo that we need a complete overhaul.

Noone is going to want to take over the team midseason and if we win trophies with Solari we won't even need a new coach. The jury is still out on that one

I like how we pressed after our goal until the final whistle. We just have to try to do that from the start too. If we can get Vini starting a few games to keep defenders on their toes considering his speed I think we can start picking up a few win to get some momentum going

I kind of wish we’d get ZZ back, just to see who the blame would be deflected to once he refuses to start the youngsters that people are now praising, and the underwhelming streak in the league continues, just like it started during his final season. I just can’t imagine a scenario where he’d be able to turn things around substantially, without any transfer activity. People are referencing him, as if bringing him back is the best solution to our problems, and I struggle to make sense of that.

I think Solaris hands we forced by the decimation of our defence or he'd never started Reguillon. The only difference is that he brought on Vini much sooner. I cam guarantee you had Lope still been here, the 3rd sub would've been Ceballos. And if it was ZZ he wouldn't even have made the 3rd sub. We are unlucky that we have started the seasons so bad the past 2 seasons. 2 seasons ago ZZ couldn't stop playing the youngsters. It's what it is. Now we KNOW some starters are finished, we have to start phasing them out or we'll never win anything

It's time to bench Modric and Kroos and change the formation. there i said it.

I don't think the formation is the problem here, just the players in it. I know if was just a Segunda team but midweek was a like preview of how we can play with the right players in it. No jogging players just 11 team players who bust their asses for eachother.

Actually I would like to see a midfield of Ceballos, Isco, Casemiro start a few games!

Lol was Vini just awarded the goal that ball was going to the corner flag had it not been deflected

Bale is so terrible.

lumbering around the pitch. not contributing anything. Solari is probably realizing why Zidane benched him.

Casemiro needed to come off. he was playing as a CM almost as a AM at some points. He cant play little passed and his touch is not great. Isco had to come on.

Isco, Benzema, Vini, Odri and Regi were great.

But without Casemiro you lose the defensive solidity as was seen by Valladolids multiple shots that hit the crossbar. If anyone needed to come off it was Modric who was terrible throughout the game

halamadrid2 wrote:But without Casemiro you lose the defensive solidity as was seen by Valladolids multiple shots that hit the crossbar. If anyone needed to come off it was Modric who was terrible throughout the game

Yeah, I agree re Casemiro vs Modric (or Kroos). Also what's with saying Benz and Odrizola were great? Benz was any better than Bale and Odri was not great at all.

Btw Benz played much better when Vini came on the field, they have nice understanding. I hope they get to start together next match along with Ceballos and Isco in midfield.

Benz already found his new bae in Vini, it's happening.

Sigh, I really can't believe watching Real fking Madrid is a chore but there I was, in the comfort of my home, being frustrated by a team thousands of miles away. All I can say is there are players on the team that have no business being there anymore, that's all. Decent win, on to the CL

It was painful to watch. The same old problems won't magically disappear, no matter how many times Florentino changes the coach.

Get out your cheque book, you cheap, delusional fool. How long are you going to keep blaming your coach for your own mistakes?

Doc wrote:Benz already found his new bae in Vini, it's happening.

Sigh, I really can't believe watching Real fking Madrid is a chore but there I was, in the comfort of my home, being frustrated by a team thousands of miles away. All I can say is there are players on the team that have no business being there anymore, that's all. Decent win, on to the CL

as bad as we are, I am honestly not frustrated with this team. Do I think they can do better? Sure. Frustrated? Never.

This team delivered an all time high level of happiness for me theepeating the CL. I read comments here and it's like people are losing their mind as if we have had a trophy drought for 10 years.

Maybe people forgot but I remember the Calderon days, those were truly dreadful. We have come a long way and understanding and accepting this team needs a bit of a transition is part of winning as well. That being said Lope was super shit after his first 4 games, the job swallowed him whole and the insecurity born from being sacked from the Spanish NT never went away. I suspect that he even communicated that shit to the team, specially after a player (I think Kroos) said that with Solari happiness is back in training.

Also all people who expect somekind of hitting the reset button, taking lots of debts to sign 6 world class players or something like that are dreaming.

Mr Nick09 wrote:Also all people who expect somekind of hitting the reset button, taking lots of debts to sign 6 world class players or something like that are dreaming.

We sold a world class player and the symbol of our recent success, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we, at the very least, had brought in a decent replacement for him. The transitional period was expected, we discussed it on here as soon as ZZ decided to leave. No one's saying we should bring in 6 world class players, but the urgency behind the squad's need for reinvigoration, is largely due to how little effort we've made to gradually replace the weak links over the past few years. We're securing top youngsters, and that will likely pay off in one way or another in the future, but it doesn't help our current situation.

Any player we sign will never match how good CR was for us. No one. Not Neymar, not Mbappe, not anyone. We obviously deserve better than what our attackers are producing and we will eventually sign quality attackers.

At most I see two attacking players signing, like say Hazard + CF. I don't believe in Neymar anymore, specially after See Spiegel revealed that story about UEFA and PSG. I always suspected it but now I'm sure the amount of money PSG are funneling to Neymar and his dad off the books is truly insane and we are never gonna match that.

I think the club rightfully invested in a lot of young talents like James, Kovacic, Achraf, Vinicius, and even the ones at the club like Llorente, Valverde, Cabellos, etc... That's the right move. Lots of young talents we control + our veteran sqaud that should be performing better. Lopetegui's appointment was to push those talents through but instead he never played Llorente or Valverde, sent Vinicius to Castilla, buried Reguillon despite his fantastic preseason... Of course you don't have any sqaud depth when you treat your young players like shit.

As far as the moves we should expect, coaching wise I think the strategy is to hold until next summer for Pochettino.

James will come back.
Kovacic will come back
Achraf will return as well.
Hermosa will be bought back
Rodrigo will arrive

And as far as making signings maybe Hazard and a CF (hopefully not Icardi), and I would do all I can to sign Ndombele, he is a monster.

It's still gonna be massive investment in young talents + 2-3 confirmed guys

Regarding the expectations, I don't necessarily mind us not winning the CL as long as Barca and Bayern don't win it , but also because of our recent success.

What i do mind is us throwing league after league away, if we lose this league we will only have 7 more leagues over Barca, the historical average is 10, 7 is not good enough, it affects our history.

If Achraf returns, then it will be for left back no? I've got to watch more of his skill there.

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing Kroos, Casemiro, and Modric all leave, Modric is getting old, Kroos is a "tronco" with good passing skills, and Casemiro isn't a must if the team is set up well and there are more complete midfielders out there.

Also want to see us get a promising left back for the future, plus two attackers. Also won't mind if Isco leaves, and Ceballos can gtfo, he is a homeless man's Isco.

Atleti and Sevilla both drew. We are only 3 points away from top 2 now. Despite this horrid run of form

Mr Nick09 wrote:

Doc wrote:Benz already found his new bae in Vini, it's happening.

Sigh, I really can't believe watching Real fking Madrid is a chore but there I was, in the comfort of my home, being frustrated by a team thousands of miles away. All I can say is there are players on the team that have no business being there anymore, that's all. Decent win, on to the CL

as bad as we are, I am honestly not frustrated with this team. Do I think they can do better? Sure. Frustrated? Never.

This team delivered an all time high level of happiness for me theepeating the CL. I read comments here and it's like people are losing their mind as if we have had a trophy drought for 10 years.

Maybe people forgot but I remember the Calderon days, those were truly dreadful. We have come a long way and understanding and accepting this team needs a bit of a transition is part of winning as well. That being said Lope was super shit after his first 4 games, the job swallowed him whole and the insecurity born from being sacked from the Spanish NT never went away. I suspect that he even communicated that shit to the team, specially after a player (I think Kroos) said that with Solari happiness is back in training.

Also all people who expect somekind of hitting the reset button, taking lots of debts to sign 6 world class players or something like that are dreaming.

Nick, you really turned on Lopetequi! I'll agree with you that Lopeteui got over his head, heeded to Flo too much and likely lost confidence. But it all isn't on him, he's not as bad as you make him out to be. The first four games were a demonstration of what things could have been.

I also agree with you that we should be thankful for the past 5 seasons and not expect the run of trophies to just continue.

I also agree with you that Flo isn't wrong with his not replacing Ronaldo for this season and with his pursuit of youth talent, all be it, one of our fundamental problems last season and this is there are too many youth on squad.

But Flo does deserve criticism (and therefore a large share of blame) for not getting the bench strength needed and requested and not getting a CF. Even if you are so opposed to Icardi; he or even Rodrigo (by the way the Brasilan kid is Rodrygo) would have been much better than the incumbent! Note: I also fault Flo for killing my NT chances.

And also a large part of the blame lies with the players, specifically Marcelo, Kroos, Modric, Benzema and Bale plus to a certain degree Ramos. It is probably as Tito said, at their age they can't keep up the pace nor pressing that they were asked to do. But if these guys are truly professional, they should see that what worked for them in the past is not now and they either step it up or should go to bench, if not to another club.

I know some on here are expecting trophies to continue, me I just want to feel they are competitive and put in the effort to make for enjoyable viewing, like we had in first month of season.

I think the club funneling money towards these kids was nothing short of absolute insanity when we combine it with investing nothing in bonafide WC players to replace over-the-hill ones on the squad.

Not sure whether Flo is arrogant or foolish. I think it's the former. He truly expected players to come to Madrid and sacrifice money just because it's Madrid. The problem is... historically, nobody ever came to Madrid by sacrificing money. We always paid the most so it made it a no brainer.

Also, expecting the marketplace to somehow come down is nonsense. Will never happen. Game is growing too fast and too much money is flowing in.

Great run and thank you Flo.... but that doesn't excuse the complete lack of foresight and shambolic planning of the present. This is Madrid after all.

I don't blame the players... they're all egomaniacs and immature. That's just part of being a footballer. It's up to management to understand the psychology of football players.

I was neither a fan nor an opponent of Lope. I just didn't think he was the right type of manager for this squad. You're dealing with entitled players of a certain age that have won everything. They're not going to change for a manager who has no personal equity... and an ideologue as opposed to pragmatist.

We did everything halfway. We half committed to kids and half committed to the incumbents.

The whole thing is half baked.

Mr Nick09 wrote:As far as the moves we should expect, coaching wise I think the strategy is to hold until next summer for Pochettino.

James will come back.
Kovacic will come back
Achraf will return as well.
Hermosa will be bought back
Rodrigo will arrive

And as far as making signings maybe Hazard and a CF (hopefully not Icardi), and I would do all I can to sign Ndombele, he is a monster.

It's still gonna be massive investment in young talents + 2-3 confirmed guys

None of those guys are game winners. We have zero game winners on the attack right now.

Benzema and Bale has won us more finals and semi's than people think.

I don't believe in game winners though. teamwork is where it's at.

PSG has 3 game winners in Neymar, Mbappe and Cavani. but they won't win shit in europe untill they figure out how to be a team first.