I think people should stop picking on robben and drenthe. Robben has not even played a full game and he hasnt even adapted to la liga, how the hell do people expect him to be a zidane on day one when he hasnt even played a full game or got used to the game. The same also applies to drenthe minus the full game bit i think?
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I think Robben started doing good, but after one or two kicks too much, he decided to play a safer game.I said it before, it's obvious he's worried of getting injured so he often plays more conservative than he could. I don't care if he loses the ball, i don't like it when technically skilled players don't use their advantage. Robinho, Robben, everbody on the team that is skilled enough, when they see the open space, they should spin, dribble and dash their heart out.If Van Nistelrooy can do a bicycle kick, then surely it should be more motivation for the players to express their individual skill. Robben played without using his best quality for the most part of the game, which is what makes me mad about it. Most of the time when he had the ball, i caught my self saying 'get him, run and make him land on his ass'. It's fecking disappointing when you know a player has the skill to make his opponent fall on his ass, but doesn't use it for whatever reason. If Robben can get some courage, he'll be massive, but without the solo runs, and the fast direction changes, Robben isn't Robben.
Yeah, I agree with that. We show up in Italy, which is never a pleasant experience, half our defence is out, our DM is fasting, they crowd up central midfield with a bunch of hacks, the ref is conservative... yeah, we played badly, but we got a result, Werder screwed up and we were not comprehensively outplayed like @ Getafe and Valladolid. We need to do better, but the wheels are on and we are going through a lot of trial and error and coming out with results. I fail to see the drama, seriously.
Hehe, at least your adjusted signature doesn't say I like to suck toes. J/K! Don't even think about it! Once again, I agree with much of what you say. 4x4s also reminded me of a moment in the first half where Guti lost the ball and then just stood there pouting. I saw that, was pissed, but couldn't tell who it was right away and then forgot about it. IIRC, the best pattern for Guti is to play partial games, either subbing in or starting occasionally, then being subbed out if not effective. That's when the magic happens and at least if it doesn't happen, we haven't lost as much. There is alway hope for one of his amazing through balls even in one of his bad games, but it's usually best to cut our losses on those games that he's just not all there. Each coach learns this the hard way, me thinks. I actually thought that Heinze was excellent. Our backline had a lot to do because our mid was letting surprises through, but Heinze had some great timing, made risky but good choices, broke up a lot of stuff in the midfield, and that last goal that he got nutmegged on, well, he was in position, he just couldn't stop it. Canna was also quality, especially in the beginning of the game, but I saw Heinze everywhere all game long. ------- Here are the four goals - and what led up to them. High quality mp4 file download delicious tubesock: [youtube]w9TnFpAny7Y[/youtube]
It should? Seriously, I find your ability to dig yourself into holes fascinating. You must spend a fortune in shovels.
That's not the new one that's the old one. Thanks for helping me with ideas though. It's honestly like Guti doesn't like the responsibility of being the bread winner. He plays a great game, seems to be the "master of creativity" then drops to horrid levels like he doesn't want the responsibility to always do well. I thought Canna was better though. The drag of being stretched to much had an effect on their game. She didn't realize that my signature hasn't been changed yet. Then she gave me an idea.
The past couple of seasons, the main thing that stands out in my mind about Guti is he doesn't perform well when he thinks he's got the starting position wrapped up. Making him a starter or complimenting him seems to make him complacent. Sit him on the bench, make him a sub, and he thinks he's got something to prove and has more motivation. I think he's one of those people who need pressure in order to perform at their best. Today, I didn't see anything different from Robben than I saw from him with Chelsea last year. Same occasional flashes of brilliance interrupted by long periods of invisibility and frustration. He does have more pace than he's been showing, but it's useless unless you have someone else running forward in support with the same type of pace (like he had with Kalou and Drogba at Chelsea...he's not going to get that from our current strikers who are slower and more finesse types). He'll have more adapting to do than we expect.
Good post MD. I actually hope that we go with Sneij-Diarra, Rob&Rob, with Ruud-Raul upfront. That'll be our starting 4-4-2/4-1-2-1-2 (which was the position Schuster said he wanted to use anyways). We can sub in other players to change formation and so on.
WTF? What is your problem using logic and putting things in perspective! Damn you!! I much prefer the childish back and forth that wastes everyone's time and makes absolutely no sense. I love it when posters that are normally pretty good get drawn into eigth grade "your mama is so fat" contests. But noooo, you have to come along and be mature.
I saw the game on ESPN Deportes. It goes without saying Real's got a heck of a talented team who are working for each other so early in the season, plus they continue to impose themselves on the ball without fear; all good things. There's some character development needed in order for the team as a whole to permeate the result and wrap up games earlier on. Otherwise I think Real fans should expect good things from this team; they're not a champions league Cup contender yet but they're not far off.
It's unfortunate to see it happen, and I did hold out hope that it wouldn't, but I think I said at the start of the season that we can't forget Guti's past inconsistency and start depending on him.
Besides all of those well-known problems in the midfield - laziness, carelessness and lack of accuracy - I think this team today was totally predictable. I don't think I had seen this many telegraphed and "intercepted" passes in a pro game before. The only uncontested and unexpected pass in their half that I can honestly recall was that Raul ball that released Ruud. It looked as though Lazio had read the script.
Why so mad with the post you quoted Alma? He's just saying we are still in a good position and I have to agree with that. I was disappointed at the result but feel much more relaxed now that WB lost. I think now that we have a pretty good chance to gain the 1st place in the group. Our problem is still the the crappy midfield, which by now we probably get used to it?! So many ball lost I couldn't even count. I blame Schuster for not making subsitutions earlier, seeing that some of the players were totally off. We also lacked the drive and motivation. Schuster seems like a good and flexible coach, but he probably needs to tough up and kick their asses in the half time if some players were slacking on field.
But I would rather have those passionate rants from the posters and would further hope that our players show even a tiny fraction of that passion on the field. I will add one more thing to the discussion here. I thought Diarra too had bad outings in the last 2 games. Just notice the way he plays. He is way too stagnant on the field and most of the time "ambling" across, when he should be more active. When he gets the ball, 95% of the time he just passes it to the next man. In the entire team, his workrate should be one of the highest, but sadly, it isn't. In fact when the second goal was scored against us, you could see canna screaming upfield to diarra and guti. Maybe he has not recovered completely from the knock he had received. I would pick guti and robben as our worst players tonite though. Guti was invisible, Robben was visible, but he just lost almost all the balls he got.
Well to be completely honest...not a bad result guys. it tastes like defeat because we were winning and it tastes like defeat because guti will probably be a starter on sunday...sigh. i love guti...but i also hate him. he gets complacent and lazy when he is a starter. honestly folks sometimes we wonder why guti is not on the spanish national team and yet deep down performances like tonight are the anwser for why aragones has not called him up. Not only guti takes blame but sneijder and robben were below par from our expectations. im going to give robben a little bit of time seeing as how he is coming off an injury and did not have a good pre-season. Weasley needs to step it up again, he seems to dissapear and reapear. im praying to god his first matches were not a fluke. ohh and also we do need robinho. seeing as how robben is scared of facing defenders now we really really missed robinho tonight. Settle down folks, were still undefeated.
I've only seen him in our games so i'm not sure how he used to play before he came here but so far whenever he's played out on the wing hes done pretty much nothing. Most of his best moments came when hes running through the middle. If you recall the Villareal game he spent the whole first half on the left side and had he not passed that ball to Raul he would've had a game similar to todays. Its onle when we he was moved to the center that he was able to really get involved with the play. Hopefully we'll see him in that position next Sunday instead of Guti.
Lol, Alma owned you on that one. That was Alma just using sarcasm about the banter people had right after the game. He was siding with Laudrup. I mentioned this too. I think the reason why he didn't sub Guti off was because he was expecting "el inconsistento" to step it up. If you take a deep look at the picture Guti is mainly the only guy who can play his role for now which is why he keeps putting out bad performances yet still starts. The irony is that when we buy a player in his position in the winter or summer he'll be looked at like he's a victim. That would be Canna cursing "el inconsistento" out for playing lackluster giving away the easy counter.
Alma, did you get to watch the game or did you have to experience it afterwards here in bigsoccer match thread style?
For clarification, my defense of Drenthe only came after Chinky said the Lazio fans' monkey chants weren't racially motivated, but motivated by the fact that Drenthe"sucks"...That bothered me, and I responded, respectfully. Hope that clears that up.
forgive me for being old fasioned but less than two seasons is too early to judge a young player coming into real madrid.
that is how I see it. The defenders were able top take the ball away from Lazio, but the entire midfield and defense kept giving away easy ball. I don't trust Guti anymore. This has been so "Guti". We should know better not to believe Guti has found himself with Sneijder.
Finally watching the first half replay, we didn't look too bad in the beginning, had major posession. Heinze did look kinda shaky and a bit harsh with his tackles/headers..Canna did well, and stopped several attacks. Robben was trying to get something started, but his first touch was letting him down and leading him into rough tackles or 50/50s. Guti started slow, but got increasingly crappy as the game went on.. That one-two between RVN and Raul was NASTY! On RVN and Raul, they both needed to move out wide more often, those two waiting up front for the ball caused some stagnation in out attack..I like when RVN goes wide, collects the ball and dribbles one or two defenders, then sends in a cross, or dishes off to someone else for a shot, or follow-up pass. Just think they could've been more dynamic when the attack stalled.