Mendy - was a beast, that’s all. I mentioned this on his thread, but the best 1vs1 defender in the team. Proving to be the LB that we definitely needed.
First of all, it was a comment about his performance in this match. You can wait a few months, watch this match again, then declare your opinion. Second of all, when you make a 28 year old the most expensive signing in club's history, the expectation is for him to kill it right away. The only thing he seems to have killed is the large value meals menu at MCDs. Inexcusable.
Player Ratings: Sevilla 0 - Real Madrid 1; 2019 La Liga https://t.co/Wv3WBcA79B— Managing Madrid (@managingmadrid) September 22, 2019 Fair player ratings imo. 9: Casemiro 8.5: Benzema, Ramos 8: Varane, Mendy, James 7: Kroos, Carvajal, Bale 6.5: Valverde 6: Hazard, Courtois
He's right in the sense that just absorbing pressure just won't cut it in many situations. If we sit that deep vs a team like PSG they'll pummel us if they get the feeling that we're not going to push forward. It's a bit like @Zidane05 said, this can't be a point between a moment where we're playing focused defense and go from there or simply a point where we more or less bunkered and played extra careful against an opponent that never justified using this approach. Weird match.
Generally yes though is put Varane on par with Casimero, he was immense, I’d put Hazard up one point as well but these are little details.
As I wrote, I knew we'll win. Ugly. Bad game to watch. Not far from a Mourinho team ten years ago. Valdano is right to say it's not sustainable. It's a stop gap, which is really good as it will give the boys confidence, but zidane and the team still have a long way to and fix our midfield. For example, Marcelo should always, always, start on the bench (Bessie CDR and Mendy injured), but I have a feeling he'll be back to the lineup in no time once physically cleared. Still a lot of work. Amazing how this team is now built around casemiro. Wait until we need to renew him next summer and watch Perez ship him and making Eden the DM.
Like last game against PSG where we didn't officially shoot on goal even once? People pretending Lope was the problem with our team as if we were so much better with Solari or Zidane. I would accredit Lope's Sevilla being not as good as before, simply because they sold over half of their selection. Not as a sign of his coaching. He didn't get 300 million worth of player influx, and for now we're only 1 point away from that Sevilla....
It’s a bit early to judge JL. He inherited some superb youngsters when he was managing Spain and ended up “looking the part”, had an aura about him which boosted his profile in my opinion. Sevilla will be his level depending on where they finish the season.
Our goal was only the 2nd Sevilla conceded so far this season, and for all the talk about how his teams are toothless, we created more chances ( as well defended better ) under him than Solari and Zidane, granted Zidane was shuffling the line up to try things out.
Solari was better .. we were more direct with Modric playing a more advance role linking up with Benz to create more chances.. His demise was getting disqualified from all three titles in a week and a half but anyone could see that coming.. Barca and Ajax were simply much better than us (overall) our defense was bad, as usual, and we were lacking quality up front (Vini & Benz missing too many clear cut chances) But he promoted Reguilon and Vini and gave a lot of minutes to Ceballos as well.. IMO Lope wanted to continue with the status quo of the club with the same old guard being the focal point + Asensio.
He had a good choice of players, but then so did Del Bosque. He 'created' a new team, and they played great. At first I was like wtf are they choosing the youth coach for, and he quikly turned it around as the team visibly played much better than what I've seen in years, plus we got results. Still pissed the federation fired him days before our WC started.
I don’t think it’s that, there needs to be balance, primarily we don’t have Hazard Gareth and James in the team to defend, we have them in the team to make and score goals , we want them to help out with defence as well of course, we should attack and defend as a team, but there is a difference between not bothering to look back and help the team when we don’t have the ball and out and out just defending, yesterday there was little attacking threat, this cannot be the norm , at least it should not be the norm for us, the attack was sorely lacking, which, with Hazard, Benz, Gareth, and James, it should not, at one point it was all defence, hack the ball upfield where there was no one but Benz and hope for the best, not sure that’s a recipe for long term success I applaud the team for it’s efforts and completely enjoyed the win, but, yeah, a balance is still needed, I actually posted that yesterday, we defended so much the attack suffered and all our attackers except Benz were exhausted IMO, the idea I imagine is to better control the overall game
Fair point, but it seems that the only way we can create any offense is if we throw everything at it (and even then it's a struggle), and we seem to only be able to keep a clean sheet is essentially have everyone track back and have literally no shot on target. This is not enjoyable football right now. And in all honesty, I don't believe it's sustainable football. And this is all weird to say given we're in second place, 4 up on Barca and 2 up on Atletico.
Couple of things that I noticed that is preventing us from playing good fluid attacking football. 1. We are so used to Marcelo as the sole creative outlet from the left. — without Marcelo Our mids continue to play the ball to the sides in order to open space and create plays but with Mendy, Carvajal and Bale there.. nothing good is going to happen (Hazard needs to get more involved, he did but it seems like his idea is only to make runs with the ball at his feet until he is fouled) 2. Static front 3 .. this continues.. not many instances of players making runs into a hole looking for an opportunistic pass.. James tried - on one he was unmarked but Carvajal failed to pass the ball to him and on another one the cross was too high for his header - but none from Bale nor Hazard. 3. Lack of association in midfield. We are definitely much better with Ramos distributing the ball from the back but I feel James, Casemiro and Kroos are not bonding well together yet. more chemistry and confidence is needed amongst these three to play more balls between each other. 4. One of Hazard or Benz needs to come deep to do link-up.. this did not happen much in the 1st half. The player who came deep more was Bale who is the least creative player of the three. In my opinion these are all tactical things that need to be addressed.
Honestly, I'm weary of this solution because the midfield seems to be incapable of creating anything or holding the ball, and that's with 3 midfielders. I'd prefer going with another midfielder, in a 4-2-2-2.
Finger should be pointed at midfield, can't stop transition before it leads to goal scoring opportunities, can't close down passing lanes and in attack can't break a line with a pass, run or dribble. It's not Casemiro, he's good at what he does but we aren't getting enough out of whomever he's partnered with. In many way a declining Modric has hurt us as much as losing Ronaldo's goals.
We need Modric back. It'll make a big difference. Fantastic game, but let's be fair: Lopetegui neutered Sevilla with his boring pass-pass the same way he destroyed our squad. The game is about fast transitions, this tikitaka bs is outdated
THIS!!! totally PLUS get rid of Isco for another centre mid who can actually defend/hold onto the ball