Goals per game with Ronnie 2.9 without 1.9. Win with Ronnie 75% without 65%. Yet we'll still have people calling for Ronnies head next week, book it.
What a frustrating game. This team is missing its core (Ramos, Pepe, Marcelo, and Ronaldo) and it shows. The problem with our current crop of players except for Cristiano is that none of them can win us a game/turn it around on their own. We only have one mode - the pass it to Ronnie mode. Should have expected it honestly.. There's no solid defender at the back like Pepe, there's no one to bring the ball out of the back like Ramos, (and our 2 back up defenders are a complete joke at building play), and our main midfield distributor has lost his mojo so bad it's embarrassing. When you couple that with our team having about half the intensity of a pretty bad Osasuna team, Kaka getting the stupidest red card of all time (not like he would have contributed anyway), and our strikers looking thoroughly out of it, I'm mad that I didn't put money on us not winning earlier, lol
Also i'm convinced Ballague (or whatever his name is) and Graham Hunter are anti Madrid for sure. Hunter tries to make out he is neutral but who is he kidding the guy has a book out on Barca. When we lose a game they are ready to pounce.
What a horrible match... Cristiano missing and no one able to step it up and score one lousy goal. So many players need to be gone asap! Albiol, Alonso, Kaka, Arbeloa, hell... even Higuain and Benzema look like total shit. Di Maria lost it and is a shadow of his former self. Ozil, same story! Bring on Falcao and/or Neymar for some firepower up front. We terribly missed Ronaldo and always will when he's not available.
Well, can't say I am surprised. My expectations are so low at this point, that I'm ok ending Top 3 and making noise in the UCL. There seems to be a total disconnect among the players, though. They're not a team at this point. Perhaps the ego issues in the locker room are a lot worse than we thought. Winning last season kept a certain esprit de corps. Now, there's noting, it seems, holding these guys together.
We should play Modric&Ozil together imo...Then we would play like last game against Celta, today our midfield didn't have a chance, cos they just didn't have the ball,cos every time our stupid defense(Varane,Arbiol especially,and even Coentrao and Arbeloa) just gave the ball to Osasuna.We have a proabably the most creative midfield but we just dont use them,we just go for long balls,and don't use our playmakers.that's our problems, keep the fakinf possesion then the oportunity will come.
I would have kept Higuain in there. Benzema is as much of a striker as Khedira. He's never inside the box. In fact, i would have started with both of them.
He should have switched the formation up. Clearly it wasn't working. I would have put in Higuain and Benzema up front and Ozil right behind them, with Modric, Xabi, and Khedira supporting.
Truth be told... this season, this team hasn't been much better with CR and Pepe in it. Their absence is not the main problem. It's something else, they are just not in synchrony.
Real Madrid have now failed to win the last three La Liga matches in which Cristiano Ronaldo did not play.
We had run of 2 very good games after the break, don't understand why Mou made so many changes, why ruining something that working? Should have just been kept just like the last line up vs Celta only with either Higuain or Callejon in place of Ronaldo. This isn't even about not playing with Ronaldo, we didn't even starting the best possible line up & formation we could field.
Higuain is not ready to play 90 minutes and with our only relevant trophy hope being the CL, it is important not to rack up more injuries (reaggravate) but try to get him ready for the CL. That and the fact that he wasn't really lighting it up out there tonight, but then again who was? I think some are also forgetting that Kaka was red carded which destroyed us.
Well that's how Barcelona works, and it works for them, if we don0t have possesion in our midfield, we don't have nothing, can't hope for lucky long ball, like we did in this match,we didnt play fotball,just kick the ball without any sense in front.