Everyone seemed to look past that pinpoint, inventive, extremely vertical ball Kroos played to Ronaldo before he headed it down to Vasquez for the tie-saving penalty.
Yep, another thing worth noting is the corner kick/set pieces, the quality of the balls he provides might be arguable (last seasons we were better at set pieces, but so were Ramos and others at headers), but if that responsibility goes back to Modric, he'll have to cover like at least 1km more during each match, since we get a lot of them and it's always Kroos moving left and right to take them. I'd rather Modric save his energy for other tasks.
Yep even ronaldo put a much better shift in than him the other night with tackles and interceptions. Hes coasting through every game this season.
Kroos has been magnificent for years. Most consistent player in our team before this season (not named Cris). But these last 5 months or so he has been garbage. He should have been dropped months ago to wake him up but that wasn't done. The final is not the time to drop him. I feel like he's not far way from being the same Kroos from last year. Zizou is boss at motivating players and I think he just needs to have a little talk with Kroos. Tell him plainly that he has been playing well but he needs more from him in the final. A lot more. That our whole team depends on him. Remind him of the stone cold terminator that he is. Maybe show him some clips of him bossing the shit out of teams. Whatever works. It really bothered me that eh couldn't get up for a crucial semi final game against his old club who chucked him out. Sure he's had his revenge in years past but playing against them in a crucial game should have had a fire in his legs. Have Zizou remind him who he is.
Or overrate players on other teams and degrade players on ours. Verratti isn't the same playing field; dude can't even stay on the pitch in big games.
Verratti, as technically and tactically gifted as he is, is low key pudgy. 60 minute player that doesn't seem to work on his fitness at all. I feel that even Özil has more gas in the tank than him.
Youtube highlights don't show him being worked to pieces at the 60th minute grasping on shirts and throwing himself at people to keep up. He should be at his peak right now and he's getting caught out there smoking and nightlifing it up and it shows in the close, physically demanding matches. That's simply no good for a player just 25 years old. When asked about his lifestyle he said he would rather quit football than change anything about himself.
I didnt know that. You talk a lot of hyperbole.. You said James was a partying machine.. then you switched to Isco.. Papers also like to blow up these stories.. all it takes is for a player to be seen late in a restaurant, party or lounge for them to make a story out of it. Not sure how you are gonna deal with Neymar here then..
It's a non issue of a player has his shít together on the pitch, but Verratti was so gassed in the second half against Bayern and Madrid this season, it throws serious attention to his fitness or lack thereof. His sending off against Madrid was mostly down to him being completely out of breath and frustrated. That's no good for a midfield motor type player. For me Verratti is turning into wasted potential.
Kroos when he is on his game is the second best midfielder on this team and in the world. Defending has never been his strong suit, and that's not the issue I have with him now. It's the effort that he is putting in, similar to what Marcelo was doing earlier in the season.
Several months ago I criticized Kroos for being the weak link in midfield that makes us so porous defensively, but as usual the reactions to that were how can I talk such blasphemy, he's as amazing as ever and its all the strikers fault for not scoring enough goals. Like most times before, it just takes a while for this forum to come around to the truth. And whatever you say about Verratti's stamina levels, he still has twice the workrate, motor and tenacity Kroos does.
I’d say if we created numerous clear chances that the strikers continuously fluffed and failed to score ( this did actually occur when Ronaldo was flat, not to mention the rightly so when it comes to scoring harangued Benz or the off the boil Gareth) then yes, “it’s all the strikers fault for not scoring enough goals”, not because a midfielder is not at his best, at least IMO, but that seems to be an outlandish thought to you from what I’ve read in your post, has Toni been underpar, he sure has, but i’m not sure what that has to do with our lack of goalscoring earlier in the season, everyone has noted it’s a real problem that was not sorted before the season started and still needs urgent attention
No, the argument was that we're just as good defensively as last season, so Kroos must be fine too in that aspect. I didn't bring up the attack, you did.
We are not just as good defensively as we were last season. We have four game remaining and have conceded four goals less than last season so we're on pace to conceded more. Out problem was not scoring. We have scored 24 less goals than last year with four matches to go. We left a lot of points on the table with bad finishing.
The classic bad week in the League for the team has been to have chance after chance, throw it all at the opponent's goal and then concede late or in stoppage time.
Yes, our problem has been scoring. At the same time Kroos has been worse defensively than last season, and he's not very good to begin with. The attack being bad is no excuse for his performance this season, which hasn't started recently by the way. Talking about the attack is deflecting and changing the topic