I wouldn't throw Modric into the fire against Atletico after being out over a month with an injury. I would prefer he has a game or two to find his feet because there is a good chance he won't be ready to go the full 90 which means automatically having to burn a sub AND having to play a portion of the game without him anyway; fitness aside he may not be in any kind of good form. We have played the 4-4-2 before with Isco and James. More importantly it will give us an extra body in midfield to compensate for what we are lacking; especially considering we are basically down a man with Ronaldo playing anyway and Atletico plays a 4 man midfield which could leave our already understrength midfield completely overwhelmed.
I get the Isco and James in the 4 in the middle formation, although, without a doubt I'd still play Modric first, just coming back from injury or not, James in a midfield 3 though with BBC in front of them ( which is what I was responding to in the quoted post) is something I have zero interest in seeing, wether he has played there before or not I don't think he is good there, I don't think the team is balanced with him there, I think the team is "less" defensively organized (solid) with him there and I just don't think he has the skills to play that position well.
Asensio is better than Lucas at wide forward. He's not been given a proper chance to play there though. More often than not, he's been played at LCM.
Probably, my view is that I'd give any of them a chance there if we "must" play 4-3-3, Asensio, Lucas, James, our width isn't generally provided by the guys in the starting lineup right now in that front three anyway, it's our full backs, more often than not, IMO any of those guys can play in that front three if the starters are not on form. Ronaldo and Gareth certainly don't stay out there much, most of the time you can find all three of them bunched up in the middle waiting for crosses from......... the full backs, and when teams sit deep, with no space to run into and the lack of dribbling ability to get past your man one on one, they all make a beeline for the box, all except Lucas, so "pace" is not that big of a factor ( for James, Asensio, whoever) my thought.
There were a lot of rumours, thankfully it didn't happen. Very bright future, very unique player. I think he had the most meters dribbled with the ball in Europe in his last season with Inter!
Kroos is injured? He is absent for 2 months? OMG it is the best news that Real Madrid get. Now we'll see some players who doesn't always play wide. Now we will play with REAL players.
One of the qualities we'll miss from our German Cyborg. I hope Zidane deals with Kovacic and Isco's positioning because those two will make or break us in the next games (Casemiro won't be fully fit/on-form for at least 2 weeks)
Damn injuries are eating us alive. This many injuries year in and year out is not normal. Our training staff must be shit
Germans are like robots. someone said he will be back just next year, already will play some part tomorrow.
Toni and Luka are the 2 best midfielders in the ********ing world. If you put any midfielder above them, then you are simply stupid.
I agree with most of you. Either Luka or Toni should be the best midfielder in the past year. Nobody was better than them. I would say Toni nicked it from Luka but not by much. He's been brilliant for club and country.
Agreed, I haven't seen any lists but anything that puts Pogba above either Toni or Luka ( if it exists) is just out and out rubbish IMO, it's one of the reasons I pay little to no attention to these personal accolades
Toni must cruise Brazilian Twitter because this was going around online yesterday/today. I love seeing him display some personality even if its at the expense of my country.