Unfortunately most of the cracks in our team only tend to show up the last couple of years at crunch time in Feb-March. On paper we have a lot of talent - but the squad has just been planned very badly. Benz is allergic to scoring goals, Bale is about 3 years past his prime, and Isco’s ceiling is doing fancy moves with no end product on a good day. Vinicius and Rodrygo are about 3 years from being consistently useful, and James is a broken man now. On top of that we bought 2 duds in Jovic and Hazard. Jovic had 27 goals last season and has 2 so far. Hazard has 1 goal this year. Last year he scored 21 (!!!)
We signed a true one season wonder in Jovic. A player no one had ever heard of prior to last year. For €60m and large salary. Hope I’m wrong but this is looking bleak now that we’ve finally hit the wall that was always going to slam on us if our attack continued being useless.
The Jovic situation is very peculiar, I don’t even know where to go from here, it would be foolish to give up on him after just half a season but it would be equally as foolish to go into next season counting him and just Benz. We have to buy goal scorers yes or yes.
We have 2 x 100M players sitting on the sidelines, either injured or uninterested in playing football. We have a 60M striker who isn't playing enough and when he does he isn't performing as well as he should. We have 2 x 40M Brazilian youngsters whose development is in question right now. We have no substitute for Casemiro, whose injury or suspension may easily cost us the season. These are some serious issues and they might cost us the season.
Agreed and I know most posters don’t care but we lack goals and we have a 9, who isn’t the best, but surely isn’t the worse, and who we know likes to be in the box fighting to be on the end of things, who has been discarded, for me at least, at this point, this is also a serious issue, we should use all available resources in order to win titles.
Even if Jovic would have been Marco Van Basten, he wouldn't show a thing in 500 minutes. Somebody in this club truly doesn't want anybody to succeed in that position.
This, it’s criminal that with our struggles in the goal scoring department that Mariano isn’t being used, we know he has a knack for goal scoring and will give 1000% everytime he’s on the pitch and currently he can’t be worst than what we got, Zidane needs to get over the fact that Mariano didn’t listen and go on loan, we have no choice at this point, he and others need to be looked at.
ZZ believes in Benz , so much so at the moment that no one else gets a decent shot at that position with any regularity, even though Benz is in a major slump, I like ZZ as manager but I absolutely do not like every decision he makes Didn’t ZZ state somewhere that with Benz it’s not just about goals but also about the “other things” he brings to the team?, if that’s the case and he’s happy with the other things, I’m not sure what the plan is to get the ball into the net, IMO , #9 , main objective, scoring
The only way to get benzema to the bench is to get rid of zidane. While I don't count jovic as a success, he wasn't given enough chances. Maybe the plan all along from zidane and perez was to give him very little minutes because Benz will carry the team and bang goals left and right, that didn't happen l, so as Tom cruise said in colleteral "Now we gotta make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it." Adaption, or thinking outside the box is zidane biggest weakness.
And BTW, by no means im saying we need to get rid of zidane, some things he's done really good, we wait to the end of the season and then see.
It's common to associate lack of goals with lack of production from your striker, but our problem is we get little contribution from everywhere else. Our second top scorer is jointly shared by someone starting for Castilla today and a CB. That's why Zidane asked so strongly for Pogba.
This is true and it makes Benzema's form dive even more unbearable. We have wide forwards who don't score..
Seems some people can't print that in their minds. The worst is even not the time given but also the way it is given.
Fair enough but not sure about the everywhere else part this season, I’d narrow it down to the frontline, the main problem for me is our 9 and players like Hazard , Vin, Gareth, Lucas, these guys should be scoring the bulk of our goals IMO Toni, Luka, Fede, Casemiro, Varane, Nacho , Sergio , Rodrygo have all contributed already this season to help bring us to where we are, can’t want more “everywhere else” than that, our 9 has got to be a 20 or more goal scorer per season not 10 or 12, would be interesting to see what the average goal return is for CMs
Don't want to be that guy but I don't think Pogba solves that. Pogba's highest assisting seasons in league are 12 and 10. One of those being in Juventus. Now I even less want to be that guy but James has 11,12 and 13 assists seasons.
I wish Zidane would try to "revive" James career like he has others. But he picks and chooses whose careers he wants to revive so James is a foregone option even though he is great at creating goals
Man... I know you like James but the dude is always injured or a game away from getting hurt. He has had playing time this season, Zidane has tried to use him.
Yeah the injuries have been a concern bt even when healthy, he never plays. Only played early on when everyone was injured
I might be misremembering but didn't he play until he got injured? And since has had trouble staying healthy.