The Colombian Prodigal Son Returns - The James Rodríguez Thread

Very happy for him.

 

Hoping he will be consistently good in coming games

 

He has always been class in La Liga for us .2014/15 and 16/17 he was great .
The problem with him is that he isnt very fast and cant driblle well and Zidane likes fast and direct football in the CL and James didnt fit his style so he was on the bench in the CL.
If he stay fit ,we will be much more dangerous in the league .His passing,shooting,vision is someting that we lack in midfield,hopefully when Modric returns we will see Casemiro,Modric,James midfield.....but i doubt it Kroos will always play
James is our best signing so far

 

Fantastic game today. You can tell he's trying to win the Bernabeu over with the level of effort he put in. ZZ has to find a way to give him a significant role this season....so much talent and a goal threat.

 

I know that James will not play every single game with the same energy and won’t get the same rating every single week, but he showed how he can be of great value for us. Even thinking about selling him was so naive. Thank god Napoli couldn’t meet RM’s asking price.

 

James’ last two performances have earned him a starter role, he elevated this team offensively and his defensive contribution has been immense; he’s been our best CM so far followed by Isco this season. Would love to see them both play with Casimero When Modric isn’t available.

 

I am still confused about his situation

I've never seen a player this good who is (barting a few minor issuee) pretty drama free be this unwanted. We wanted to sell him for cheap and people didn't wanna pay

Weird

 

the classic N10 position is not very popular anymore

 

I hope he proves everyone wrong this season with similar good performances. He has the talent. He has the skills. He might not have a 9/10 performance in every game, but if he can keep an acceptable level of consistency, the board won't be looking to sell him next summer.

 

Napoli wanted him for free

 

Dybala?

 

Benzema made it clear who was the best today.

 

It's good they are showing support like this. Hopefully James keeps this up and makes things difficult on Zidane.

 

Napoli president thought he could James for nothing believing ZZ would never keep James at RM. Glad we avoided such a catastrophe. ZZ did what was the best option for the club once he knew Pogba wasn't coming.

Heynckes, one of the best coaches in modern era rated James and he was Bayern's best player against RM in semis. Kovac didn't see James with same importance, but then again he's likely to get sacked the moment Bayern finds a good option.

As for ZZ, he had a set 4-3-3 system with BBC and midfield trio with a stacked squad in 2015-16. James decided to stay and fight for a starting spot. When Bale got injured, Isco got the nod as he was very hardworking player then eager to get a bigger role.

I don't think ZZ had anything personal against James or vice versa. James was unhappy being a rotation player and not getting to play any role in CL finals. No player of his stature would have been happy with so much time on the bench and there was some internal tension. Now we have an aging midfield and Isco struggling with injuries and form issues. Hopefully James stays healthy as he's our best creative midfielder and becomes a regular starter.

 

It did not work as planned today but the entire team played bad and he was a contributor to this bad performance from the team.
Not a good game for him and I know he can do much better in these CL matches playing in midfield like he did against us playing for Bayern.
He needed to drop deep more and connect with the full backs and carry the ball forward .. he did in some plays early on but not consistently..at the end he was playing as a 4th attacker.. I am not sure what was all that about.
I am hoping a James / Modric combo will make us play better.

 

The role James was asked to play today was not ideal although the only bits of spark from midfield in the first half were from him.

He is putting in a lot of effort defensively but James is no enforcer. We need the whole team playing hard so that guys like James can use more of their energy opening things up in the final third. James is no "all action" CM.

 

He should play with Casemiro and Modric and bench Kroos. That's a better fit.

 

He is so limited under pressure tho for a 10, no dribble and struggles when he doesn’t have enough time to decide what to do.

Apart from that his vision and long balls are sharp. Isco for example rarely loses the ball under pressure, only when he overplays and makes it too hard for himself.

Kroos too under pressure pure shite. Only Modric and isco of our current midfielders are press resistant.

 

I am a huge James fan and was happy he stayed, but, there’s this

And then this

It may be a better fit, but it won’t solve our issues if he cannot reliably help the defense when we do not have the ball playing in a 3 man midfield , all you are doing there is having someone play who you think is better than Toni when going forward, we would still be vulnerable in defense and be overrun in the middle of the park just like if Toni was playing IMO,

if it’s about keeping the ball then that doesn’t really matter because Toni keeps it about as well as anyone we have playing for us right now, so, what to do?, I much prefer James in that front three and I would play him there instead of Gareth, more quality on the ball, the other side of that coin is that Gareth is doing relatively well at the moment and it seems we are in the beginnings of an undisputed front three yet again with Benz Hazard and Gareth,

 

Given our midfielders

We need a 4 man midfield

We can move players like puzzle pieces all we want...but it won't work. It will be unbalanced no matter who we field

M K C

M I C

J M C

K I C

No matter what...it's unbalanced

 

I agree. I don't think we can get away with a three man midfield with what we have currently.

I also think it's bizarre that people have been saying James can't play CM which is practically where he was at Bayern. The guy has been our best player of the season along with Bale and Benzema.

 

I think Zidane is giving him freedom so we become 4-2-3-1 with possession is my guess.
Under Jupp he was restricted to move forward in certain games unless the full team was in attack mode..
In other games he played as 10 in 4231 as well but not always. I followed Bayern during that time.