Yeah, but you also tilt pretty hard whenever someone disagrees with you. That's not an attack, but merely an observation. I don't even post here regularly anymore due to all of the bickering over agendas, so I'm not sure how you lump me into the category of "you guys". Varane made the mistake, but Valverde's sub certainly contributed to it. Especially when the replacement was a Modric who you specifically pointed out that against La Real can't run anymore. It was no coincidence that Neymar was able to find space in the middle of park once Fede left. I'm comfortable in how Zidane has turned the team around just as I'm comfortable with acknowledging that both Varane and Zidane are at fault.
Some of the comments from you armchair coaches are way over the top. Real was 1-0 nil up when Valverde came off - ZZ wanted to win the game hence attack minded Modric came on. He involved in the 2nd goal almost immediately.....and almost the 3rd. Varane was the one that ********ed up the momentum of the game. There is nothing more to it. And .... Keylor Navas, he was outstanding through out the game.
I think the criticism on Mbappe is pretty harsh. Road games in the champions league are always difficult. How many times have we gone to Germany or Italy and suffered for 90 minutes? Despite that, I think he was their most creative outlet until Neymar came in. And Neymar was quite creative because he came in for Gueye and was dropping back really deep on their side to get the ball. In the 1st half, the likes of Icardi and Di Maria were ghosts because they couldn’t get the ball out of the back. The 20 year old was easily their best outlet under that pressure 1199685857453727745 is not a valid tweet id
Cost benefit. If Zidane, like many of us on a football message board realize, that Varane is good for a major mistake every other game Zidane should want to shield Varane as much as possible. I understand Zidane's decision but, he gambled and it didn't pay off. We've been playing the best football in over two years these last few matches. Contrary to popular belief, Zidane is a malleable coach and can adapt to minimize results like these in the future. As for Keylor playing lights out, did we expect anything less? The opposing keeper is also the position that Zidane has the least amount of control over.
You wanna to talk about probability....You can make decision as to how the game was progressed - You simply can't control the outcome of your decision. There are still a lot of thing could happen during the last 15 min. PSG could tie the game 1-1 then we would be talking why Modric/Jovic...etc were still on the bench when the team needed another goal. ZZ took the right decision. Modric immediately put the team in the driver seat. Varane screwed all up. The rest is history.
Being younger doesn't guarantee that he'll be better in 5 years. Bale has been the same player for almost his entire career. Isco too. Actually I think many players peak early. Not saying Mbappe will, but there's no guarantee that he'll aquire more skills and become a more polished player by default.
Neymar was more dangerous than Mbappe in less minutes. If anything his best asset right now is his speed. If he doesn't develop his other skills I wouldn't go for him at 27/28.
Between Dani starting to look a little past it and Odriozola’s maddening inconsistency I’m starting to think Hakimi might own that spot before too long...
Does anyone really think Mbappe is better than Neymar RIGHT NOW? I don’t think what you’re saying is really at all controversial tbh. The Mbappe hype (of which I am a part) has always had to do with the combination of his age, mentality, and skill. He’s not a Cristiano/Messi-level player and probably never will be. But he’s also probably the favorite to be the best attacking player of his generation given the early returns. He played well yesterday.
It's a pity we threw away the 2-goal lead in a span of 3 minutes after playing some quality football for almost the entire match. Imagine , had this been round of 16 or any of the knockout stages - damn :/. Conceding 2 away goals can easily cost us the tie. Varane has to take the blame for this draw and simply can't afford such dreadful errors.
Still feels like a loss to me. We dominated them for 85 minutes. A silly decision by the coach and Varane still being in Russia for the past two years killed it. Happy with the performance players put in and hopefully a turning point in the season where the mentality switches. EDIT: And what is Varane actually contributing to the team? I don't think anything. He doesn't score enough goals on set pieces for us and hasn't defended well for near enough two years. How the hell is he a starter
When Valverde was subbed we were up 1-0. After Modric came on he set up the goal which Marcelo assisted to make the score 2-0. So again, tell me how Valverde being subbed had this negativr effect, when we increased our scoreline and dominated every part of the rest of the match except for a 5 minute period which our CB brought upon us due to fcuking up on a routine GK clean up?
Exactly. It's crazy reading this shit. I mean FFS, that sub resulted in another goal yet somehow that sub was a disaster. Valverde can't play every minute and neither can Casemiro so we need to find ways to get them rest here and there. I mean we have people legitimately saying we conceded a goal because a midfielder wasn't there to keep Varane from not clearing the ball past Courtois onto Mbappe's foot. Seriously crazy shit.
Valverde can get back and defend. Modric can't if he's playing high up the field. We went from having four in midfield to having three, one of which is 34 years old and can't play the defensive game if he's playing under the front three. Yeah the sub got us a goal but allowing PSG to bypass a midfield that wasn't letting anything into our 18 for 75 minutes isn't the correct decision. I mean if you want to play that game explain to me how it no effect on the game? The blame is with both Zidane and Varane. He should know Silky Johnson isn't so silky anymore and the reason why we've gone on this stretch of great form is because there's more protection to our back four. I know it's unfashionable to be pragmatic, but that's one of the biggest aspects I admired about Zidane. It didn't work out and that's okay. A lot of other things did on Tuesday.
What the heck does that have to do with Varane knocking a cross which Courtois would have easily scooped up, past his own GK and onto Mbappe to score? What would Valverde have done there? Teleport to the goal line? Also, Varane has had a very good run of matches. He has been the better CB recently between him and Ramos so all this hindsight shit won't cut it. Literally no one expected if one of our CBs would do it, it wouldn't NOT be Ramos. The reality is the move Zidane pulled gave us a 2-0 lead with 10 minutes remaining. Then Varane undid all of it.
I rewatched the game, Valverde’s sub indeed allowed Neymar to come back to life, Courtois actually didn’t have to make a single save in 2nd half until minutes 80, the problem however is that around the 70th minutes Fede looked exhausted, there was a moment where we had throw in near PSG box at exactly minutes 68, Valverde was bending over and looked like he was done for the day, he ran up and down the pitch all day after all, so I get the logic behind Zidane’s move now for sure.
Of course it affected the game. Substantially. Valverde`s positioning and movement made wonders for our tempo. With him gone, we started losing it and PSG was getting in great spots. In such environment, individual mistakes will increase: Bear in mind. We have 2:0 lead, and we produce such atrocious and irresponsible positioning.
The reality is we cant rely on Valverde and Casemiro to be their all the time, so its time to drop Varane and give Militao some game time!
I don`t blame Ramos. He is old and constantly getting in wide 1v1 positions because Marcelo is constantly off-position and late.
https://en.as.com/en/2019/11/28/football/1574933485_508379.html I am not sure why we need to fear Bayern, Juventus or City if we did play them, I think we have few months to improve still so we do not make repeated mistakes