Can Khedira play at Alonso's position? Would like to see that happening. And Albiol = championship level. F*CK what a useless footballer We played average but slowly some key players are reaching their old level, like Di Maria
Yup, I agree. Ozil, Khedira and Ronnie all done good. Marcelo and Coentrao both did their thing. Defensively Xabi was good but going forward not Sharp. Iker, several key stops or this tie would be much more complicated.
Fantastic match from Iker. Fair play to Valencia for admitting that Banega should have been sent off as well as Soldado. What an exemplary club.
Wonder how many of the fans who booed mou for dropping iker would grow balls and applaud him for doing the unthinkable? Khedira, ozil, carvalho, iker and Ronnie were great. Three clean sheets from 3 games. I think we are back at basics but slowly getting it together ready for the big games.
Valencia were equally very lucky. We deserved more in the second half, Mesut and Ronaldo played them dizzy. Mesut was doing slalom runs between Valencia players, the last time Valencia have seen somebody handle balls that well was on Ever Banega's home videos. We played with 3 substitute defenders and one returning from a lengthy injury. They huffed and puffed, but Iker held the house as good as he could, while the attack played a tidy game but also let a lot of chances off.
Soldado has every right to be upset; he was robbed of two clear chances on net by the linesman. Anyway, it's a good result in the first leg. They missed two sitters, and we missed a couple as well. I'll take that trade off. Ozil was fantastic in the second half, and Sami was excellent again. It was nice to see Marcelo back, hopefully it will light a spark under Fabio's ass as well.
Mou kept faith in Khedira and now the fans also begin to appreciate him. Imo his teammates always appreciated him, especially for his work rate. Great team player the type you love having on your side.
I'm not sure what the unthinkable if benching Iker is not it. Benching Iker was a mistake of epic proportions the only thing it did was go to prove just how valuable Casillas is to the team and club. I still don't see how people can spin that episode as anything other than a royal fock up on Mou's part.
There was a third offside call made which looked too close to call and wasn't as clear cut but likely would have ended with a shot on goal.
Let's not get carried away here. He has performed well these last games and has been important during his time here in Madrid but Yaya Toure and Vidal are still miles ahead of him. If I could go back in time and sign Kevin Prince Boateng instead then that's a deal I would have preferred as well.
Let's keep it real. They were outplaying us and should might should have taken the lead had Soldado not been wrongly ruled offside. Then we score a goal out of nowhere. Both luck and the officials were on our side last night. It is demoralizing to be on the other side of that equation and Valencia looked like a team that had been collectively kicked in the nuts when they went down 1-0.