Villarreal vs Real Madrid

I don't think he got it on purpose. The first yellow was arguably intentional, but the second was just unnecessarily harsh officiating.

Vinicius is in his head right now, overthinking everything. He needs to play simple, it will come.

We weren't even that bad. But we were superslow. Felt we lost our dominance when we took out a CF and brought on Modric. Feel Valverde would've been a better choice. Villarreal were very tired yet we put on the slowest play in the the stadium to give them that little extra assurance in midfield

Casemiro our MOTM imo

kroos has to hit the fecking bench 90% of the time he passes sideways or to Ramos just gtfo

vinicius is shit

we need to integrate brahim in the team, let him and hazard attack the wings and place jovic in the box

Mr Nick09 wrote:at least we did not lose

its a sad state of affairs when a club like madrid, in a league like la liga has resorted to feeling this way

I'm just glad we took full advantage of Messi and Suarez being injured.

titosantill wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:at least we did not lose

its a sad state of affairs when a club like madrid, in a league like la liga has resorted to feeling this way

No it's not a sad state, it's simply the state of things. we are a club trying to build a new idendity.

Whether we like it or not, losing CR completely changed the identity of the team, we all know this. we became aimless looking for a new drive.

So it's a normal transition we are going through, losing just makes situations worse than they are.

I started watching after the 60th minute, from what I saw, I am really happy with Mendy, he looks good.
We drew Villarreal the last 3 times on their stadium. :/

How did Jovic do for the first half ?

Doc wrote:Our identity has always been a winning culture, a "fight to the last man" sort of culture. Our results have less to do with identity and more to do with us playing shit at the most inconvenient times.

We don't need Ronaldo to beat fking Valladolid nor Villareal. We need, however, Ramos to pass the ball and not be a pleb in midfield for no god damn reason. Or Conetois to push the save somewhere other than to the opposing player.

We dont need individualities to win these games, i hear you, but we look aimeless at times. Even when it's as simple as go win the game, we can't and we wont.

You absolutely do need individualists to compete at the highest level...  it's a player's game.  The team with the most best and most unique players win at the elite level.  End of.

CR was one of those...  but Benzema, Modric, Kroos, Ramos, Varane, Pepe, Marcelo, etc. were also absolutely world class at their peak.  Benzema is still good... but that's it to me.  Even Varane looks slower despite his age.  I've noticed that he's no longer the fastest player on the pitch.  

We need a top player on all 3 lines of the game.  We're fine defensively.  Midfield...  fixable.  Kroos and Casemiro are fine.  We just need a replacement for Modric.

On the attack... I'm frankly worried.  We just don't have scorers.  Benzema has been good but he's not a scorer in terms of mentality.  Bale has also been decent.  Neither are dynamic forces though.  Losing Hazard was a HUGE blow while Jovic hasn't gotten going.

In short, we need Hazard to come back, get Jovic to start scoring...  and get a FUCKING MIDFIELDER.  HOW HARD CAN THIS BE???? WE'VE ONLY NEEDED A MIDFIELDER GOING ON 3 YEARS NOW!!!!!!! TO BOOT, GOD FORBID IF ANYONE GETS INJURED BECAUSE THEN WE'D HAVE LITERALLY NO MIDFIELDERS. ANY FUCKING IDIOT SEES THIS!!!!!

If we are not getting anyone it's Zidane's fault and his stubbornness to say i want Pogba or nothing. We had more than enough time in this mercato, if he had requested it, for us to sign players like Roca, Van de Beek or Eriksen. If Zidane wanted to sign new midfielders, he would have. He chose not to, all for the sake of Pogba. It's stupid and if tomorrow he doesnt course correct, this risks to get him fired sooner or later.

Van De Beek and Eriksen do absolutely nothing for us! Have you seen Eriksen lately? He looks like present day Modric and we already have one of those. Van De Beek never ever impressed me... and he's a AM.

We need CMs ffs. Proper midfieldrs that can manage the center of the park. We're apparently getting the Sporting CM by Monday... so there's hope there. But we could have used another.

Midfielders are becoming like fullbacks and CFs... not very many good ones unfortunately.

Mendy was great, it's good to see someone in that position who can actually defend.

Militao should partner Varane soon though. Ramos was all over the place defensively. Hopefully Militao can do what Mendy did today.

Some of Courtois' parries were questionable. De Gea is a free agent soon??

Courtois is just very very very slow with his feet.  When he's able to balance and center himself, he's very good.  But whenever he need to shift and set...  it's a freakin disaster because he's late in getting himself set to push off.  

The guy is just not a top keeper imo.  You can't be if you're that slow.

paying 70 mil for Bruno Fernandes? lol that's mad. It's a transfer story that i would have to see before i believe lol

by the way there are plenty of good CMs out there, but Zidane decided no one was good enough

I actually like Bruno Fernandes a lot. He's underrated in a big way... if we pay 40-50 mil + add ons, that's the right price.

I think he'll surprise a lot of people here.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, he's very good at supporting the attacking and actually scores goals as a proper CM. He's not as good as Pogba. But he fills the profile we need.

for that price you sign Eriksen who is 1) better 2) more versatile 3) has been playing at a higher level for way longer 4) has CL pedigree

Eriksen isn't the type of CM we need and he's been absolutely meeeeeh for Spurs for over a year now.  I am a big fan of Eriksen too. I was tickled when the rumors started at the beginning of last season.

He doesn't play CM the way would need him to.  People need to get that out of their heads.  Eriksen, like Van De Beek, play the AM role which is similar to Ozil for a point of reference.  The issue isn't that these guys can't drop deeper and do a good job with buildup... it's the work rate and defensive part that they just don't have.

Cyborg wrote:Mendy was great, it's good to see someone in that position who can actually defend.

Militao should partner Varane soon though. Ramos was all over the place defensively.  Hopefully Militao can do what Mendy did today.

Some of Courtois' parries were questionable. De Gea is a free agent soon??

I'm one of the people who wanted to be patient with De Gea when he was under fire for his many errors during the last season, and not just jump the trigger like everyone else. He's been such a valuable and dependable player for Man United over the years, even when the rest of their team have been shit. I tip my hat to him for what he's done for them in the past. However, present day De Gea is, similarly to Courtois, not bad by any means, but he's really been inexceptional for some time now - not to mention prone to making grave errors every now and then. His great performances haven't quite made up for the less convincing ones.

If we can get him on a free transfer, then that's a no-brainer, but both him and Eriksen have been shadows of their past selves since around the time of the world cup. I don't know if a simple change of scenery and boost in motivation is the solution to their respective drops in performance level. Not sure if there's any correlation, but the one guy who didn't participate in the world cup, Benzema, has been among our most dependable players ever since it. He's still not the prolific goalscorer that we would have ideally hoped he would be, but he's been a positive presence, nonetheless.

I've noticed that some of you are already less than impressed by Jovic, but I think he'll come good eventually. His dribble and outside the box strike today looked promising, and that was probably the only decent spell of possession he had. I suppose one could argue that he could've positioned himself better to receive the ball, but like Chad points out, it didn't seem to be a day for simple passes. At least, not in the final third His best chance of scoring would've been off of one our countless crosses that kept going in Ramos' direction.

Jovic is good but so far he hasn’t got any service which is baffling as he is our only player constantly on the move. we should surround him with wingers similar to how Bayern did in 12/13 with a far inferior Mandzukic. play Hazard and Brahim on the wings with him up top and he’ll score. he is so composed in the box

Sports, Nick, do you guys realize that Fernandes and Eriksen, if he does come today, are coming as backups or rotational players! Just can’t see Zidane benching any of Modric, Kroos or Casemiro! Rotating yes but replacing any of the three, no way.

I actually hope it’s both since it would give us 6 midfielders, pushes Valverde down to 6th were he belongs and puts Isco and James in the competition for attacking spots were they belong.

Interesting note, if they do get both, that pushes either Brahim or Rodrygo off of the first team, due to numbers!

My outlook on team, is I still expect this to be an awful season, primarily because of Zidane’s stubbornness to play same old. I’m hopeful that he is forced to play the newcomers to actually see what they can do and hopefully replacing some of the old timers. I also would like to see Brahim and Rodrygo go out on loans like Kubo so they get starter action and can demonstrate what they can offer. In other words, it’s about time, we get a proper assessment of what Flo’s investments can do, which includes Odegaard and Ceballos.

And speaking of Zidane’s discard list, I believe the liga will go to Atleti!

i don't believe we are signing anyone. too close/late to make such a major move, and as bill said i don't see zidane wanting anyone who he feels is good enough to break up his core unit (Which basically is shooting ourselves in the foot). too early to put the favorite tag on atleti....way too early and premature. but what they did was a revolution. what we are doing......still the same "well these guys won 3 in a row" rhetoric (even though a huge difference maker in cristiano isn't here)

Thibu
Carvajal Varane Ramos Mendy
Kroos Casemiro Modric
Rodrygo Benzema Hazard

A campeonar!!

Vamos equipo!

This is it lads and gals, this is the day we take back the crown. When he decides to leave RM for good Zidane will go down as the best manager in our history imo. This guy picked up a shipwreck Solari had left him and steered it a LL trophy. Absolute legend!!!!