Atletico Madrid vs Real Madrid

Very much a miss so far but early days in the season...and in his contract as well lol.

Hazard takes too long on the ball. Players aren't scared of him in La Liga so he'll get closed down. Until he punishes them by dribbling past them and leaving them for dead, they'll keep crowding him.

Other option is to release the ball faster like he used to at Lille.

Partey is a better playmaker than Kroos

best news of the day is Lucas Vasquez did not play a single minute of this game. there is hope

Fantastic gameplan.  We're going to be a tough tough team to beat.  Our defense has become our foundation.  Given that we have our best players there, it's the right way to go.

We don't have the horses in the midfield to be an attacking side for now.

Hazard has been nothing short of atrocious so there's little choice.

Well that was that

Very poor of ZZ not to put Vinicious on. He played this derby last season so you can't argue this occasion was too big for him

Negative game

Hazard can sit his fat ass on the bench. Wasted 76min doing feck all

subs were perfect.  James, Modric and Jovic were absolute no brainers. Vini is too error prone and a headless chicken... that would have exposed us.

Very poor game from Hazard

Bale had the best chance and skied it

best chance was the header by benzema actually.... fantastic save. 99% of the time, that's a goal.

sportsczy wrote:subs were perfect.  James, Modric and Jovic were absolute no brainers. Vini is too error prone and a headless chicken... that would have exposed us.

Vinicious was the MOTM last time we played them and won comfortably. Please headless chicken

Jovic getting 3 mins is not perfect. Neither is subbing in Modric who has been out for ages. We didn't need him. We needed two attackers not midfielders

oh and clean sheet, 3rd in a row?

Yawn, happy we didnt concede, but what a bore that was

We suffered our first shot against us in 4 games today. Atleti had one shot on target all game

Good draw almost nicked it but a great save olbak, great defensively, tibu didn't have to do much and was good when he had to take action, good for him.

Midfield was solid just no forward passes into dangerous areas, just switch it to the wings or short side passes to the wing, can the zz do anything else?

Hazard don't know what going on with him looks lost, just running around aimlessly, no creativity or danger, just nothing, hope he gets better doesn't make sense to bench him now.

Benz unluckly with that header, not much service nothing new and bale should have scored that chance tbh, the attack needs to be more unpredictable, no through passes at all or diagonal passes or 1-2 combinations, nothing just crossed ffs.

Never rated Hazard all that much. I kind of expected this so I'm not surprised. May take him time to adjust to la liga

high level game a draw in the wanda is a good result.

So after putting us to the sword in preseason Felix was never to be found today

Courtois made his entire reputation on only needing to make a couple of saves a game at Atleti that had a rock hard defense at the time.

I bet you that people will say Courtois is a WC keeper in a few games despite him basically having nothing to do lol.

Mr Nick09 wrote:high level game a draw in the wanda is a good result.

Biggest thing is we controlled it.  Atleti did little to nothing that worried us...  

The next phase of evolution for us is to get our players in form (Hazard), healthy (Isco, Marcelo, Mendy and Modric)... and then see if it's feasible to take more risks since the risk/reward would be to our favor perhaps. Worse case is that we now have a formula that works no matter what happens.

Well played.

sportsczy wrote:Courtois made his entire reputation on only needing to make a couple of saves a game at Atleti that had a rock hard defense at the time.

I bet you that people will say Courtois is a WC keeper in a few games despite him basically having nothing to do lol.

That was before their defense hit their prime, to be fair. Of course, they were still great, nonetheless. From what I recall, Courtois saved most of the shots that came his way back then, and I remember being surprised by his movement and reflexes despite his large frame. He was excellent against us as well. We created plenty of chances against them in the match that I remember most clearly, and I know CR made a few shots that we all had expected to be goals, but Courtois kept them all out.

In recent matches for us, his reflexes have really disappointed me. I believe him having such great reach in addition to reacting fast was what made him such a reliable goalkeeper back then, but I don't see any of that in him now. He doesn't react particularly fast, struggles with low shots, and despite only being 27 years old, he looks like a much older version of himself than the one who broke through during his loan spell at Atletico. He may have been overrated back then, but he definitely looked more reliable than he does nowadays. He looks slower and generally less sharp.

Valverde should continue to start.

Great game. Middle looks much better with him.

Courtois: Criticism does not affect me, I analyse my performances with people who know football

he really is deluded

halamadrid2 wrote:Courtois: Criticism does not affect me, I analyse my performances with people who know football

he really is deluded

i'm not sure what you expect him to say. the in-thing these days is when one isn't performing to state that people criticizing them don't understand football. that being said, if he said "oh the pressure is too much for me and i suck" he would be labelled as mentally weak like. damned if you do damned if you don't....he should do his talking on the pitch, but in his defense, they asked him a question, and imo he gave a better answer than asensio did

i'm not a big fan of his (nor any chelsea player of recent), but i don't know what you expected or wanted him to say.

halamadrid2 wrote:Courtois: Criticism does not affect me, I analyse my performances with people who know football

he really is deluded

1) did you expect him to say anything else?

2) i also think what he is saying is that he knows he hasnt been playing that great but he and "people who know football" know he can play at a higher level. this to me if the only way it makes sense. he is a very confident individual who is self aware of how good he has been since he is like 19, there is no way a bad patch would really affect him.

Hala like most real Madrid fans love piling it on, even when there is nothing laugh about, always act like casuals when trying to create a narrative, tibu should have said Madrid pressure is crazy, best club in world blah blah garbage you tell yourself, that what separate fans from pros, most fans don't know shit about football especially real Madrid fans.

he has been playing bad so what? Again I have seen navas let in some simple goals no one cared half as much, things are not as bad as you want it be,.when the team defending well makes it easier for him and when their struggling he gets exposed just like any other GK, learn football please cause I have seen you in love with average players isco, willing to look over how trash he is season after season, because the media told not too but never getting enough of trashing bale, so easy to talk shit when you don't much about footy.

chad4401 wrote:Hala like most real Madrid fans love piling it on, even when there is nothing laugh about, always act like casuals when trying to create a narrative, tibu should have said Madrid pressure is crazy, best club in world blah blah garbage you tell yourself, that what separate fans from pros, most fans don't know shit about football especially real Madrid fans.

he has been playing bad so what? Again I have seen navas let in some simple goals no one cared half as much, things are not as bad as you want it be,.when the team defending well makes it easier for him and when their struggling he gets exposed just like any other GK, learn football please cause I have seen you in love with average players isco, willing to look over how trash he is season after season, because the media told not too but never getting enough of trashing bale, so easy to talk shit when you don't much about footy.

you mean like you pile it on Isco even when he is not playing?