They did introduce key players in attack (Neymar) and most importantly kept their most important player in attack (Messi).
We play 4231 but we don't have a real number 10. Modric can do it but he's more valuable in the midfield
One thing is clear. Carvajal needs to ride the bench for Odriozola. Too many shitty performances to warrant a starting place.
Don't get me wrong, I doubt Ronaldo or any forward was going to paper over what a horror show our defense turned in. But the end product left much to be desired in the offensive end. For 82 mins I felt like RM was the better team. But we should've buried them by the time they equalized based on how wasteful we were up to that point. The defensive frailty can be fixed very easily. The offensive inefficiency will take a lot more.
Marcelo should be embarrassed. At fault for their goal, and totally bottled what should have been the winner. If that’s a taste of this season, maybe he needs to join his best buddy in Italy sooner rather than later.
Casemiro: "I had a cramp, I'm fine really, but a little tired. I had already planned with the coach to play 60 minutes, but it was a bit more because of the stress of the game. In the end, it was not the usual me because of the fatigue and cramps".— Real Madrid Info ³⁵ (@RMadridInfo) August 16, 2018
So? I don't understand your point. They did the transition even with their best player. They didn't need to sell all their important players so the team can have a transition.
24 hours later, I'm calmer. We had that game in the bag at the 75th minute and we let it slip. Lack of fitness, horrid mental mistakes. Those things can be fixed.
I watched last night and it's true, until that goal we were definitely set to ride out the match. But the Casemiro loss reall hurt, and like many I don't understand going with Ceballos over Llorente in that situation. I'm worried about Marcelo defensively with only Nacho and a youth team player backing him up. We will likely get torched down that side again this season. And yes, Isco has to step his game up a few notches. He wasn't terrible but we can and should expect more from him.
I hardly see any comment on how the 3rd goal is what gave them the lead and how it was a gift from Varane.. Our defense is poor its just that on tough CL games our players play as if their life was on the line but on average games we let in too many goals - Carvajal admited this on an interview.. There are many teams out there who are better at defending than us. That was never a concern because we outsocored them I guess..but now that may not be the case with an injury prone bale, a toothless benz, without CR7 and a lacklustre bench..
They are both attack midfielders who play through the middle we can play bale on left and Vasquez on right,drop Isco in the next game against Gatafe.
Varane is overrated..He is good but not the best. Ramos is very good when he is focused but we should start looking for a world class replacement CB. Marcelo , same story.. he is 30 already and he needs strong competition. Cavajal had a very bad season last year and appears to be going the same path this year. We decide to bring world class competition for Navas but refuse to do the same with any of our defenders.. Makes no sense to me .
If you lose your best player, you do a full overhaul. If you dont, you can get away with adjustments. Our game revolved around Ronaldo and it still does even when hes not here anymore.
I disagree that he is overrated and I am not sure what the measurement is for “the best”, IMO except for a dip in form earlier last season, Varane performs very well at a high level fairly consistently, which is key, reads the game well and has all the attributes ( which he has already shown) that a defender should have , strong, quick, good both in the air and on the ground, with the ball at his feet and without, did he make a mistake yesterday, yes, but I personally can’t think of any defender anywhere who does not make occasional mistakes, I am happy we have Varane on this team and I would not like to trade him for any other defender out there, none,
The best defense is the one who collectively concedes the least amount of goals.. 5 la liga teams conceded less goals than us including Espanyol and Valencia. They could be very good players individually but collectively they are not top shelf like Barca or Atletico.. Those mistakes that you are refering to happen way too often for us not by just Varane but from all...and they are costly. And by having someone like Vallejo, who lacks experience take the CB role when one of these two get injured is making it even worse..
I dont know if its the defenders or the tactics but we always mess things up while defending trying to pull some cute passes and moves instead of just kicking the ball out or just clearing it. We need to keep it simple. Even with our corners. We are going for the short corner takes more often which often results in us passing the ball back to our defence. We have Ramos, varane, bale, casemiro just get the ball in the box.
This game could be the wake up call we needed. Sometimes feeling on edge is not a bad thing, forces us to go out there and fight for every point. Complacency is a big worry after winning 3 CLs in a row (not just with the players, with those making the signings), so hopefully games like this help us want to prove ourselves rather than demoralize the team. Bale and Benzema were very very good, it's very comforting to see them step up, God knows we will really need them in BD'Or form this season. I didn't like our midfield shape, I think Casemiro looks more comfortable in the pivot role and Isco didn't really get much space in the CAM role so in games like this might help to switch to an inverted triangle. Defense was terrible like everyone's said, but am not too worried about that, individual mistakes should be an anomaly. Not to sound naggy, but we reeeeeeaaaallllly need another CF. It was embarrassing seeing Mayoral come on when we needed a goal smh.