I'd say things went pretty well. They didn't have a ton of chances to score, we held the clean sheet, and we got some nice flowing play at times. I'm happy with this for sure.
Not much luck with ladies lately? I'm sorry, I had to say that! Your "If team A beats team B by Y-X, team C has to beat team D by Y-X to be as good as them" statements don't work in real life.
3 points, suffered in some moments, some great play. Raul could have scored maybe one or two goals. We better polish our shooting because it could punish us one day. Ramos was good at CB and another cleansheet! Its only our 5th? game and patience is a huge virtue. Well done to raul and ronaldo for breaking the particular records. Kaka, well done on scoring, now that monkey is off your back!
Man, these teams sure do like to play Hack-a-Kaka defense. The poor man's ankles (and chest today, lol) must be sore from all of the spikings...
Good win, first half was better than the second enough though they had eleven players. Anyway, I really liked the way we played in the first half. The only players who looked off were Higuain, Kaka, and Granero but everyone else was just great. Gago and Guti looked fantastic in midfield, did really well to control that midfield. In the second half I thought we shut off for a good 15 min there at the start of the second half but started to take control again of the match and killed it with the penalty. Here is my player ratings Casillas - Did not have much to stop other than some half chances but overall a good day for him. Diarra - Did good as a stand in RB, did not attack much but did well in defence. Ramos - was very suprsied by him and made by smile a lot as I still want him to be our CB instead of RB, I thought he had a great game and made very few errors. Albiol - has been a big suprise for me, another great game and great singing so far. Marcelo - Another one that has suprised me this season, I never thought he could look so good in defence but he is, did very well in attack and defence. I am glad that he is working out at LB as I like him very much as a player. Gago - His best game for us in a while, lost it a bit in the second half but that was when the whole team shut off. Had a very strong first half, needs to work on his shooting though Guti - Like Gago, great first half but went off a bit at the start of the second half when the team shut down. Still did well to control and spread the play around in the midfield. Granero - MEH, was not horrible but nothing special either. Was just kind of like a body out there. Need to see more from him, more of that pre-season form. Kaka - like Granero MEH, did nice when he got the ball to keep it and move it around but I want to see move from him in terms of moving off the ball and to me at least he still seems a bit lost as to where to be at times. Ronaldo - Fantastic, was always dangerous and scored an amaizng goal again. I am with YS here, I want his ass to be more greedy. Had a very nice freekick in the second half and a good chance off a corner. Hopefully his form continues. Higuain - again MEH. IMO he can't play as the lone forward. He dirfts out wide too often and does not make the runs a number 9 does (see Raul comments), I thought he was a bit lost in his role tonight and could not hold up the ball very well. Missed a sitter in the first half when Marcelo set him up and had a nice shot in the second half but other than that was very quite. Looks like he does much better with a number 9 playing alonside him. Raul - Did better than Higuain IMO, he knows how to play as the lone striker. I often saw him making smart runs and holding up the ball but the one thing he lacks (speed) hurted him greatly in this game. If he had a bit of pace on him, he would have scored a goal today. Higuain needs to take note on how to play that role. Was wenting Benz to come in to play the number 9 role to see how he did but still Raul did good. VDV - did ok I guess, not really that involved but when he got the ball he moved it around. M Diarra - good to see him out there, was a bit rusty as can be expected but still good to see him back from a long injury. Even had a nice back heal to Marcelo. Overall a good game and a good win but I think we need to work on our focus a bit more and to kill off the game a bit better. We had more chances in the first half to score but did not and let him come back at the start of the second half. Still did well and it's still early days for MP so I am happy with it thus far.
The second half was far from good, especially since Villareal played with one less player. Kaka and Granero were pretty invisible today, hopefully it's just a bad day. Ramos was a monster and we like monsters . I'm glad to see Diarra and especially Vdv getting some minutes on the pitch. He is here so it wise to use him. All in all three points are here, but I won't jump on the hype train. We've got a long way to go, I'm still waiting how we do against a strong opponent. Villareal is a good team, but they are in the slump lately. Hopefully Kaka and Ronaldo get some rest in the next game.
Well it's not quite on par with referencing yourself in third person. And a lot of people who don't like sports in general loathe how people use terms like "we" when discussing who they support - as if they have some personal involvement. Either way I wouldn't get to worked up about it, mate.
I'm happy about this game. I thought the defence looked pretty good, and cant remember any point in the game when our goal was in any real danger. Ramos, Albiol, Lass and Marcelo all had good games today. I'm starting to love Marcelo more with every passing game. Gago had a good game in midfield, which made me happy. I've always wanted him to succeed here. On the other hand, Higuain was god-awful today. He looked so disillusioned and out of sorts, that it took me back to the days of Thomas Gravesen. I remember this one moment where Higuain was day dreaming when Ronaldo played him a through-ball, and he started running after only after Ronaldo threw his hands up in the air. Even when he was taken off, he looked really crest-fallen. I hope it's just a one-off thing for him. It was good to see Van der Vaart on the pitch today, and he didn't do too bad either. A part of me felt sorry for his situation, and I really wanted him to get a goal. Oh well, maybe next time. Diarra on the other hand, looked slow, sluggish and obviously out of touch. Who can blame him though? He's been out for 8 or 9 months, and after seeing what happened to Ruud the other day, no one can blame him for taking it easy It was really great to see him back on the pitch! P.s>Ronaldo in the 2nd minute, man oh man, what a goal. I love the kind of form he's in at the moment. There were times in the game where it was quite apparent that Ronaldo is on a completely different level of skill than the rest of the team. I'm so glad we have him
we won ,we kept clean sheet always happy about that , and we played some beautiful football the score could have been crazy as in more then 5 easily but we lack in the final third unlike wat happen in the last game , backline was like a mad bull all the backline and gago ,, and 2 tnk pepe going be back so i see nothing but progress and when me front line fully sync
Good post man, agree with you on Marcelo, Gago, and Higuain. I think 4x4 said it best, Gago is not the finished product yet but I rather have him at his age as our DM/CM than any other player in his age that players his postion. I am also happy for Gago and hope that he builds on this game.
Oh don't get me wrong, I would take Ronaldo over him just for that reason. Ronaldo can score on a header without using his hands. But Messi is the only other player out there that even compares IMO.
This one is a sock, the question is whose sock is he? It's not his club, he's a sock just here to spew crap. Anyways... Key Points: - Need a strong defensive effort from Albiol and Ramos to keep ahead. - Kaka struggled, yeah he scored a penalty but he struggled big time. - We are relying heavily on Cristiano. - LOL @ Atleti. Players: Guti - Did well enough. Didn't have the sparkling assist or goal, but did what he could with what he had. Maybe if we had better finishing.... Higuain - Missed a sitter. Was lost in communication for most of the game. However had a nice shot which needed to be saved twice, however even he knows this wasn't a good game for him. Cristiano - Like an airplane he flew through yellow shirt after shirt and scored a great goal against a pretty good keeper. Was our biggest danger throughout the game and if he'd be more selfish he could have scored a brace. Heck if he had a better touch on the ball late on he could have had a hat trick. Kaka - Still struggling and began forcing the issue. Glad he got to take the penalty and get the monkey off his back. This is the Kaka from last season I didn't want to see, I hope he shows us the Kaka for years back which he showed many glimpses of in pre-season. Granero - Struggled to make impression early and seemed like he was overwhelmed at times. As the game wore on he got more into the mix. Gago - Tale of two halves. Played well in the first half, shit it most of the second half, then back to awesome in the end of the second half. I don't know what it is about Lass, but he's like his kryptonite. Marcelo - Not as offensive minded early but had some good contributions as well as the penalty he won from a nice cross. Lost the ball more than usual in attack as well. Lass - More defensive then offensive, sturdy early on. One could say he made some unnecessary fouls but as our third choice RB he didn't do so bad. Ramos - Great performance, like a wall of hairy manliness paroling our backline. Some dangerous looking challenges but he aced every one of them. Albiol - Great performance just like Ramos. They partnered well and seemed to have somewhat of an understanding. They kept us in this game, credit to both. Casillas - Regular saves, poor distribution. Same ol' Casillas. Subs: Raul - Wasted many clear opportunities, but seemed more lively towards the end. M.Diarra - LOL @ backheels, flicks and no look passes. However was very rusty as expected. VDV - Invisible. Don't have any other way to describe his performance. Other notes: - I hate to agree with Phil "the idiot" Schoen, but we had so much possession and have such an attack that we should produce more. We have yet to find our 'thing' and are heavily leaning on Cristiano individual performances to start up our engine. I think part of the fault falls to us having strikers who look lost (YES, all of them Raul, Benz, Higuain) and Kaka not finding his 'place'. - LOL @ Atleti, it sucks that they have no fans on this site and I can't brag because I don't post on other sites. Here's to Getafe being the second biggest team in Madrid!
I disagree about those two. While Kaka was invisible today, he was great in the first three games of the season. In the last two he kind of lost it but overall he's not doing badly. I also think Vdv did pretty decent. I agree with the rest.
I have to agree with YS on VDV. He was invisible except for the one time he received a pass from Ronaldo and then put in a good cross (this was the series in which Raul missed the easy finish in front of goal). But maybe being kind of invisible is a good thing for him. It means he didn't screw up, right?
I think it's worth pointing out that we won a tough away game with our entire defensive scheme in tatters: our first choice CB suspended, both his backups injured, we had to slide two important players out of position because we have our backup RB injured, which means that, with Alonso also injured, our starting centre midfield is out... And before someone complains about why our players get injured so much, Garay has gastroenteritis, so he is not technically injured. Plain bad luck.
And that's fine but I think we should give Rafa a bit of a pass. He's a bit rusty as well. Hopefully as the season goes on he'll be able to integrate himself into the team and be able to contribute. I can't believe I'm defending him after all we've been through but fair is fair.
YS: I think its okay to rely on ronaldo for the time being because we havent exactly found a way to make, all 3 lines effective and consistent. I do think that ruud would have been perfect for this game because his finishing is just so classy and he seems to fit into the system (Maybe we need someone to act as the target man?). We also seem to be passing well at times but sometimes we get too eager and lose the ball. Maybe the players need to take more joy in passing the ball more? Maybe i am over analyzing?
I agree with you about Ruud, I said that about Higuian he seems lost when he is told to play as the lone forward. In this game he keeps dropping out wide, not making runs at the right time, and not holding up the ball well either. This game Ruud would have been great but I also thought Raul did better because he is more experienced and knows how to the play the lone forward role. I would have liked to see Benz in there instead of Raul today since he was the lone forward at Lyon so I am guessing he knows that position better than both Raul and Higuain.
Nope don't think you are and I don't think there is something wrong with relying on our best players. It's for in the future if we become over reliant. For me just by watching Ruud's influence in the 10 minutes he played, he gives the other three strikers laps.