I actually don’t see that at all, can’t think of a single game where he lost possession more than 3 times, and his decision making is one of his best attributes. It did this season, more than once. In fact it’s the only position I’d play Kroos in if I were the coach, you’re wasting his talent by playing him as a side midfielder l.
Exactly. Having ability is one thing but players like Kovacic and Ceballos still need to grow their game. Well rounded mids like Modric take some years to mold and on top of that he is clearly a special talent in terms of his ability to hold the ball and wait for the right opening or tempo to play certain balls. Kovacic clearly needs to work on his attacking game if he is to play as an advanced CM. And/or he needs to work on his defensive positioning and aggressiveness if he is to play as a DM. Talented but still without a clear position. Ceballos is skillful but sometimes in love with short passes and also needs to work on his attacking threat. That goal the other day showed what he could be capable of, but those are shots he has to take more of to show he is a threat. Defensively he is a little better than I thought if I'm honest. Just want to see him play more so he can find his tempo here and hopefully his footballing brain can grow giving him more poise and improve his decision making.
I don’t see any problem with Ceballos’s footballing brain whatsoever, does he sometimes make mistakes? Sure, so did Zidane, Pirlo and Xavi, players generally don’t play a perfect game; can he improve as a player? for sure, but acting as if decision making is one of his Achilles heels is just strange to me, in fact I find that his play is very mature for someone his age.
I think Ceballos is doing very well giving his limited minutes in the club and his age. Do I think he is going to be our new Modric - is too early to tell.
You can get away with Kroos there against some minnows but it will never work fulltime or against top opposition. Kroos as the deepest mid against quality sides is suicidal. It was tried under Ancelotti, Benitez and Zidane. It’s been tried with Germany, it does not work.
What was tried under those coaches was a Modric Kroos pivot, in a 442, very different from what I am suggesting here. Kroos will do great in a 3 man midfield as the regista as long as he has two work horses around him.
Agree to disagree. As long as Kroos is the deepest he’ll have to at some point breakup plays and put in tackles on his own, which he isn’t capable of. It’s not his game.
He has to do those tasks wherever he plays, I don’t think Kroos’s problem has ever been tackling it’s actually bothering to track players in order to tackle them that is his issue, so I’d argue that the deeper he plays the better since he doesn’t need to track back as much. Playing as the deepest midfielder also doesn’t necessarily mean you have the most defensive responsibility, some of the best deep lying playmakers in history were always surrounded by DMs who play “higher” up the pitch than them. Take Pirlo at AC Milan for example, he dictated play from deep but the dirty work fell to Gattuso and Ambrosini who both occupied higher parts of the pitch when Milan had possession, they dropped back as needed.
Kroos as regista is tried and failed experiment. Even on the days when he actually tries he is physically slow. I get your point about playin him with two high work rate players but unless those are Kante or Casemiro I don't see it. If he is sitting in front of the back four there is bound to come a time when he will have to deal with a counter or an opposing runner etc and that's where he will let us down. I think a Kroos - Casemiro - Ceballos midfield is the most balanced. With Luka being the furthest forward of the 3. If you want to play a Ceballos - Kroos - Kovacic midfield then the FBs have to be pulled back a little and that is basically handicapping our team far more than it would help us. I also don't count Kovacic as a Real Madrid player. I wish Toni would convert into a Xabi Alonso type of player as he is aging but there are no signs of that happening. Coaches do envision him being a Xabi and hence tried playing him in that role but its been done and it doesn't work. Not here and not in Germany. Regarding Dani C...……… he has all the attributes to be a special Real Madrid player. All he needs is consistent minutes and chances. He will never show his true potential if he's given a bit part role. With Luka slowing down drastically its also a good opportunity to do that. Lets see if the club and coach see it that way.
Kroos as a regista hasn’t failed, in fact the games in which we’ve played him there this season we’ve conceded exactly ZERO goals from my recollection, correct me if I’m wrong. You could argue that those were the “easy” games/ the team was pressing well as a unit or that you’re skeptical about him being able to replicate it against better teams but saying that it’s failed is simply inaccurate, unless again you’re counting the times he was played there with Modric in a 2 man midfield. A midfield of Kroos, Casimero and Ceballos is hardly different from our current go to midfield, it’d have the same limitations, the most notable one being Casimero not really contributing much to our play when we have the ball. Ideally id only go with that if we’re playing in a tough away game and are being conservative, not something I’d want to see week in and week out. Xabi wasn’t that great at defending either btw, he had much higher work rate than Kroos though, he also happened to be paired with some of highest working mids in the game ( khedira, Mascherano, Vidal etc...) which I’m sure kinda skews perceptions.
You are not taking into the account the rest of the team and picking the midfield in isolation, which you can't do. Our FBs have been a major attacking weapon for us for years now and that's not about to change unless we get Salah and Neymar playing RW and LW. Why do you think Casemiro stabilized our team so much as soon as Zizou started playing him? In our set up we need a player who can break up plays to sit in front of the CBs (especially when one of those CBs is Deigo Armando Sergio Ramos) more than a player who is a distributor. Playing Casemiro against less attacking teams does prove frustrating and many here have suggested that coaches play Kroos there for those games but as we have learnt...… especially this season..... there are no easy games for this team anymore. re Xabi: Near the end of his Madrid stint and Bayern...……… you are right he was highly suspect in defense which is why a lot of us were OK with him leaving but before that he was solid back there by himself. His interceptions and reading of the game made up for his lack of speed. Like I said, this is what I wish Kroos would become but either he doesn't want to or idk. He apparently has all of the tools needed to do so.
^ He said he is not Casemiro.. It seems to me he's not interested and wants a destroyer #6 player next to him at all times.
When we did play him at regista he was realty bad and instantly improved when we put Casemiro next to him. Perhaps he knows what works for him and what doesn't more than others. The fact that coaches have tried to put him there shows that they see what we see as well. That he has all the tools to play there but when he does he is really bad and we don't get the output we expect at the same time sacrificing our balance and solidity at the back. Not a direct comparison but a bit like Pogba with Marchisio and Khedira VS Pogba without Marchisio and Khedira.
Yea I full expect that we’d get an attacking powerhouse next year but that’s a convo for another time. Anyways I don’t want this to turn into a who between Casimero vs Kroos offers us more defensive stability, of course that would be Casimero but that was never my argument, my point was that we’ve played well with a Kroos as a regista in a 3 man midfield before and that we should see it more often and no we didnt collapse defensively when it happened, we in fact barely had any shots taken against us. Of course all of that didn’t happen simply because we dropped Casimero and played Kroos, there were many factors at play, notably our effective counter press and great shape when we couldn’t get the win the ball back right away. I’m aware that our FBs are the ones who give us width and when they push up we’re essentially playing in a 3-4-3/3-5-2 but if the coach is doing his job right then those counters that you fear will happen much less, you know the ones when it’s 5 of the opponents vs 3 of our defenders. Xabi even at his prime was not a great defender, he got stuck in for sure but as I said he always had players next to him very capable of doing the dirty work.
Again I’m not advocating that he becomes a DM, playing deeper will allow us to take better advantage of his passing abitlties.
Even if we were to put aside the defensive part of the argument...………. this has simply not happened. As much as we wanted it to. In fact the opposite happened. His passing and distribution instantly improved when not playing regista.
Disagree, Kroos best stat for us in a single game was against Getafe this season when he played as a regista, he played that role flawlessly with Ceballos and Isco alongside him and our midfield look much more fluid, every pass had a purpose and was moving with pace and intent. Getafe tried to press but couldn’t keep up. If we aren’t going to trust Kroos or Llorente to play there then we need to buy a defensive mid with some ball skills because I don’t believe our current go to midfield combo is the way forward.
I think he's playing deeper already.. I see Modric more advanced and Casemiro occasionally making those shutter runs forward.
That’s true but I guess my thing is that I want to have Ceballos make those runs not Casimero, Not in every game of course. as we saw against Celta, we don’t need to always be ultra conservative with our midfield selection.
Not in Carlo’s 2014/15 1st half of the season it wasn’t. I know I’m using a loose term for a regista but it was close enough. This is not me advocating for dropping Case and pushing Toni back, I just still can’t believe we didn’t win La Liga that year ... one of the biggest ******** ups I’ve seen.
I think Ceballos can score enough goals as a box to box player for a team like RM. None of our CMs can do that. He's perfect fit next to Kroos and Case who are more suited playing deeper. I thought Modric was scoring 4-5 goals in league per season as I tend to remember his screamers. But his league goal tally is 3,1,1, 2,1,1 in six full league campaigns. Ceballos is most similar to Modric in our squad style wise, but with better ability to finish. Isco can also play as 3rd midfielder with Kroosand Case imo in post Modric-era.