Lol. Wtf. Haha. Sounding like a Cule describing Ronaldo. "People think because he scores so many goals and wins so many awards he is the best player but he looks better than he truly is."
I don't know what's so funny about that. For example, Di Maria looked a lot better as a midfielder than he truly was because he was running around chasing his tail, but in reality, he was actually leaving us vulnerable at the back.
When an attacking mid makes a run towards goal the other mids are supposed to cover. That’s just how it is..
It has nothing to do with a run "towards" goal. He was chasing the ball when it was with the other team all over the pitch, all the way back to the GK at times. That's idiotic, because a few passes out, and now you're exposed, everyone around you has to now extend themselves to cover the spaces you left behind you. Di Maria is a wonderful player, but he's not a CM. And he is the prime case of someone looking better than he was. Players that tend to chase around the ball get praise for having a high work rate, but in a lot of cases, they're chasing around because they lack positional understanding of their position or they're losing the ball in the first place and are chasing after it.
I agree with a lot of what you say but Di Maria was pretty amazing at CM the second half of La Decima season, one of our most important players at that time. Generally he’s not a great CM though, he’s a winger...
He wasn't amazing. He ran a lot but he often went on these headless runs that left our entire midfield exposed and the better teams took advantage of that. IIRC Xavi made him and us look like a fool in Bernabeu because of that.
You are wrong. We won the champions league that season & he had a big impact on that. Especially in the final. So it looks like his headless runs helped out when it counted most.
I like how nobody can discuss a player without running towards another player as a crutch. Ceballos has his moments but plays in a position where reliability and concentration are key factors. That's not saying he won't get there at some point but he's not there right now and his competition is better than him. Asensio’s good or bad seasons don't make Ceballos better or worse.
Zizu is not impressed. p.s: That is Alba textbook run. After years of the same runs, it would be expected that RB covers that shit. But it seems not.
if our FBs sat a little deeper, waited a bit and made that sort of late run, instead of poaching around the corner flag, I'd be much happier
That is also something that Odriozola should 10/10 times. He'd be much better. You rarely see Alba run with the ball (he knows he's limited on the ball), mostly off the ball. Odriozola on the other hand seems to think he can play football and dribble his way to the corner flag almost constantly, very average stuff. That's why I can't wait for Hakimi to come back, will easily 'win' back that RB spot. Also, the reason Alba is effective with that run is because he knows when to start and because it's simply incredibly difficult to defend.
This is what i have been saying for ages. We don`t overlap per se. We just camp at wide position in final third. The end result either back-pass to widely positioned CM playing as fullback or making a cross.
Two issues with this. Odrizola is not the brightest bulb and secondly it comes down to tactics from coaching staff. It seems ours is insisting on wide and high positioning from the start in final third. The end result being, you are static and lack space and spots to exploit. Basically we are playing "handball" tactics.
I don’t understand how Carvajal lost his brilliant attacking game, and became so damn confused defensively! They guy who once suffocated prime Ribery became a shadow of himself. Just like Mendy, we need a starting material RB next summer. I don’t see Hakimi as such TBH.
Im hoping Odriozola steps up this year. That RB position should really be very well covered for us but neither option is performing.
Gotta say I disagree here, I find most of the time Odriozola is out there on the right mostly playing on his own, nobody coming to swap passes and combine with him IMO, I also find particularly when he is playing a lot of his runs are ignored, on the other hand the main complaint is that all Madrid does when attacking is get the ball out wide and cross cross cross, so........... one or the other really, what happened there isn’t anything I haven't seen us do, luckily someone was in the middle to finish the move off, often, our striker is out there with the fullback
It's the timing of the run, we're out wide and up further than the rest of team doing nothing of value. But I agree our CF is out there posting up on flag too or in midfield. Our tactics are absolute crap and it transcends coaches, this is what these guys want to do.
We need some of these players to find their form again. We can't keep buying the same position expecting a worldbeater and getting disappointed.
Dani Ceballos: ‘I love the city, I love the Premier League and love Arsenal. I’ve hardly noticed any difference in size between Real Madrid and Arsenal. It’s much easier to adapt because the fans make you feel you’ve been at the club forever.' By @sidlowe https://t.co/XspyEuT3mL— Guardian sport (@guardian_sport) September 12, 2019 Lots of praise for Arsenal in this article. I’m glad he’s doing well and it’s clear he’s going to get the minutes he needs to continue developing. I hope he still has his mind on returning. There’s going to be space in this midfield for him in a year’s time