Espanyol never looked very threatening. Not a convincing win either. Benzema regressing to his ordinary form is concerning and Bale also failed to score for the second consecutive league game. Maybe JL is over doing it with the rotations this early in the season because this is a game (at home v. Espanyol) that is normally a comfortable win and instead the team struggled for 90 minutes to secure three points.
He could improve in that aspect for sure but what stats don’t take into account is how important he is to the balance of our team in the upper side of the field, you could see it yesterday for example, as soon as Mariano came in for him we could barely connect any passes up top; that’s why He’ll be the starting “9” ( he isn’t a 9 ) despite those poor numbers.
This is fierrospeak for "i just checked the result on livescore and came here to give my opinion on it".
The team didn’t struggle for 90 minutes, it did for 20 ; even during those 20 minutes we created as many chances as them. Also anyone who watches La Liga outside Real Madrid and Barca knows that Espanyol this year are a very good team that will not be easily beaten by anyone, they have been rejuvenated by their new coach. Espanyol (and Betis ) are currently better than Sevilla and Valencia and we should be happy that we’ve managed to dominate them for 70 minutes in a game that was played 3 days after a CL tie.
Well said, you could see the drop in ball retention when he left the pitch. He plays a pivotal role in the build up especially in games where Kroos doesn't play. Btw, you could see the team play a different way yesterday with Kroos not there. I could probably count the long balls to switch play on my two hands. We relied heavily on moving the ball on the ground, Ceballos played several beauties across the pitch, but it's just not as effective. If you're going to rely on a more ground game with Kroos not in the lineup, I still think you can't waste a spot offensively on Casemiro in these games and have to play Llorente instead to speed up that game.
Says the Barca fan who didn't even check the line-ups. But that's a given, how would someone that didn't even check the line-ups have any idea about the bolded part? demo used to know his shit.
I agree re LLorente; I thought he was very good both on the ball and at breaking play yesterday when he came on, it’s hard to tell how much trust Lopetegui has in him though because he hasn’t played a single minute up until now ( not that I remember anyway ), if we stay in the copa del Rey longer this season I could see both him And Valverde get some serious minutes and perhaps convince lopetegui that they are good enough to come in and out the first team in La Liga as well.
I was wondering about this too. Is he on strike? Injured? Surely he wasn't benched - Zidane was forced to resign for not making him an automatic starter and Carlo was similarly put on blast for not catering to his demands; there's no way JL can survive not playing a healthy in form Bale as a #10 for the full 90 minutes. The team worked hard for the first 60 minutes, which is why fatigue set in. If the team had locked it up with another goal then they might have been able to take their foot off the gas at some point but by the end the subs weren't able to take control either and were holding on for dear life playing with both Casemiro and Llorente. I think Espanyol had a late surge because at 1-0 they were still in the game and had to go for it, which was a result of 1) to much tinkering with the starting eleven that put out a weakened team to start, and 2) substitutions which left an even weaker team to finish the game. I've always been a rotation guy but it's late September, the first CL game was just played and I don't think we've seen the same/best starting eleven in consecutive games. Let you tell the story tho and it was an epic season defining victory against our fiercest rival.
The subs definitely downgraded the team and along with fatigue are the reason we lost control of the game, you don’t sub Ceballos and Isco out when you are trying to control a game, Rotation was NOT the issue as the team played very well up until the 70th. They Weren’t holding on for dear life, that would imply they were just sitting back and fending attacks after attack from espnyol, we looked more likely to score than concede even at the very end but I don’t expect you to know this since you didn’t even watch the game (you didn’t even know that Bale didn’t play ). Espanyol are not our fiercest rivals, I don’t remember ever implying they were, I pointed that they are a very good team this year and they are.
Jeez bro. Why so negative? We won. A champion has some ugly wins. Those are the ones that make the difference. That's the case in every sport
That Bale comment was the highlight of the match thread for me SELL HIM!!! Buy Aly Cissokho. Another former left back who will answer our prayers.
If Espanyol play against Farca like they did against us, they will at least get a point. Very trough opponent to beat.
Wondering when? After the line-ups were confirmed? During the match? After the match? After shit-posting on RMBS? ... Oh, right now? Better late than never, I guess.
It is true that we lost the middle after subs but not the subs are guilty of that. We started without Kroos, then JL replaced Isco and Ceballos who were the best that day in the middle. Players that left in were Modric, who probably was the most tired of them all and Casemiro who cannot play with a midfield which is not talented enough, they cover his disadvantages and he covers them in defence. As already told, Vasquez is a player who can be used occasionally. Maybe not as much as with Zidan but he deserves minutes. He can perform in defence, run 12-13 km to cover his side and he knows to assist, cross inside very well. (will be less good without CR now) He must play sometimes, to have his minutes and keep decent shape for matches when he can give a contribution to the team. But he is a winger, he cannot go in instead of a midfielder and then expect that he will cover that part of the field.
That's just a cliche with no causal relationship to championships and no bearing on the outcome of the season. Besides there will be plenty of games later in the season when players are injured, suspended or out of form and it is then that I hope we are able to grind out the wins. I think the mixed nuts starting lineup and wack a mole Lucas Vasquez mandatory sub made the game more difficult than whatever Espanyol was doing. This could have been an easy win, it was not.
I think that the subs made sense, even if they didn't work out that well. Knowing that Espanyol was going to be chasing the game, it made sense to put in Vasquez and Mariano and give the side a bit more counterattacking bite (in theory). Casemiro had to stay in because Ramos seemed to have been inexplicably given full freedom to charge upfield. Now I think that was a weird tactical decision, but if it was going to happen Casemiro needed to be there to drop into his spot. In that sense, Vasquez made sense too as he was more likely to get back to play wing defense when the outside backs moved centrally to lessen the gaps with Ramos up. Now why Ramos was so aggressive offensively with us up 1-0 I'm not sure.
I think the Lucas made 0 sense. He doesn't handle pressure on the ball well, and you essentially conceded possession to them and sat back protecting the 1-0 lead. That strategy won't really succeed for very long in Madrid. You could have brought Mariano in for say Isco if you wanted and dropped Benzema deeper and kept hold of the ball and killed off the game.
I know everyone is anxious about Benz and wants to see him do well, but we have a huge 30 to 40 goal hole to fill this season, Benz can “play well” all he wants but IMO as our most experienced and main striker, he has to score consistently if we are to win anything at all, he has far more responsibility to this team than to just “play well” he has to score and lots, we have to score to win, if the attack plays well and we don’t score it’s not much different than if we don’t link up fantastically in attack and still don’t score, and I won’t even think about no assists or shots on goal, he has to do more, early days yet so I hope he can get back to scoring and scoring consistently and keep it up throughout the season, we need him to do that.