Benz has two more seasons in him…. Is what everyone was saying at the end of last year. Lol. Farca may drop points but we’re not going to pull off a string of wins with the lack of goals we have with Benz’s from and Vinny’s finishing. And playing Kroos and Modric at the same time is not helping matters.
Benz doesn't have two gamedays in him let alone two years. At this stage, I'd use him as a poacher; let him chill in the box, asking him to do his old tricks, drop deep, link up play etc is asking too much of a 35 year-old.
when has Benz actually strung two consecutive games this season? Let alone two consecutive half’s? Seriously, people need their eyes checked.
I can't make a judgement one way or the other off one game, this never makes sense to me, no matter who the player is, we looked decent vs Bilbao too, however despite passing the "eye test" we failed the points test, no matter what though i still think we will win the league.
Our wingbacks camavinga and nacho were bad today...thats why I always say we need a world class wing back like Davies..who is good in defence and and strong in attack..we should go for him and throw 80M€ and not to wait summer 2024 when he is in last year of contract because he might extend till than..Great game from Kubo today!proved he can be useful for us at least as rotation instead of Fatzard!
name me two consecutive matches this season where Benz has played well ( not just scoring one goal or a pen).
It's hard for me to fault the guy considering the effort is there every single match. But 5 chances inside the 18 yard box which were either directly at the keeper or shot wide is unacceptable. The margins in the La Liga title race are razor thin. Vini's biggest obstacle lately is between the ears.
- The team's fitness seems to be an issue this season, we haven't been able to physically compete for a solid 90 minutes. We either doze off in the 1st half and wake up in the final half hour, completely switch off for the entire game (e.g. Supercup Final) or like today: start well but shutdown by the 70th. This is surprising to me considering we have Pintus. - Bench? What bench? With Rodrygo, Camavinga, and Ceballos starting we don't anyone who can change the game. Maybe Asensio. I think Rodrygo is a stronger threat coming on as a sub in the 2nd half given his poor stamina, the dude ghosted us by the 60th. Asensio performs slightly better than Rodrygo as a starter; Rodrygo is far more effective coming on from the bench. - Hazard and Mariano clearly won't and shouldn't get any minutes, it doesn't matter if we're losing or need a goal. They should both be informally dropped by Carlo with 2x Castillas (Arribas, Bravo, Rodriguez, Vinicius II) training with the first team, gradually making the bench and getting minutes. At least we can have a deeper roster this way, having 2 deadweight forwards who aren't utilized is BS, one of them still has another full year with team. - With Camavinga's performances at LB, I'm pretty sure the idea of him shifting permanently to a fullback will be marketed pretty soon. This would be a travesty.
Lol weren't you one of the first burning the manager when he dumped your inconsistent, underperforming countryman James on his head?
No. I never asked to sack him. Just didn’t like his stubbornness just like Carlo. Some people want Carlo gone. I’ve always been pro players bar Eden. And above all, I remain positive and upbeat because I believe in the group people here, not necessarily you, want to burn them at the stake at the first sign of trouble
Expected a draw and got one. Not surprised but still disappointed as we had some of the great passing moves of the season in this game. Carlo ducked it up when he left Kroos on pitch and took Fede out. Regarding Vini, on page 2 of this thread he’s back and on page 5 he’s back to being 2019 shit version. He can dribble as many players he wants but we get point for scoring goals, not flooring opponents and grabbing fouls. The #bailavini drama has unfortunately distracted him from putting in actual work to improve shooting and it’s quite evident.
I’m sorry, but this is a truly terrible take Lyra. This is a box score take rather than a watch the game take. Yes, Vinicius missed chances today that he should’ve finished. But to say today, where he was destroying defenders relentlessly and our main source of chance creation, that he was distracted with #bailavini is borderline problematic… at the least, perhaps you didn’t watch his performance. He was unplayable and the only person that did anything to stop him was Alex Remiro. Should he finish those chances? Of course. Has he had performances this season where he seemed distracted? Sure. But that wasn’t this game.
Would you have a player that dribbles past 1 and scores 1 from a great chance or another who evades 5 defenders to choke it up in front of the net? Cristiano and Benzema used to get booed by Bernabeu for missing such chances but with Vini everything is different and not in a good sense.
Benzema did take a month off during the WC Finals. He was often injured before that. I just looked up his statistic(not sure how updated). In terms of total minutes, he had the 12th highest on the team. The issue might be his age finally catching him. And it is a much bigger problem than just fatigue.
We've become a bit easy to read haven't we? Feels like 8 out of 10 times it's pass it to Vini to beat who's in front of him and then cut and play it across the goal.
IMO - this was Madrid’s best game of the season. We win this match 9 times out of 10. Highest quality La Liga game I have seen all year. https://t.co/TnNj6C48ZL— Matt (@MattW_MM) January 30, 2023 Definitely less bummed to lose points this way as opposed to when we play crap.
I honestly thought Ceballos gave us more options to create chances compared to the usual vini only plays. Our short quick passes in tight areas were a joy to watch. Rodrygo was much more involved and I feel had Benz not been so off his game we would have been even less Vini dependent. That said, some of the things Vini pulled off its only natural to want to feed him.
I’d have taken a shit gameplay (which is also what we are playing this season) ending in 3 points as opposed to this TBH. Barcelona Girona for example, should have ended with them getting 1 point but a lucky miss from Girona resulted in a shit overall performance from Barcelona to continue staying up at the top. There no points for the aesthetics unfortunately.
Unfortunately for us Barca has been very lucky: Ososuna Vs Barca. Lewa was sent off in the 31 minutes. Ososuna scored in the 6 minute and was 1-0. Eventually, Barca with 10 men won 2-1 in the 85 minute. Valencia Vs Barca. Lewa scored the only goal in the 93 minute.
Agreed. They're not going to drop more points than Real Madrid this season. They're grinding out ugly and lucky wins this season, whereas RM is doing less and less of that as the season is progressing. Not to mention there are teams in La Liga motivated to beat Real Madrid but not Barca. This is looking like a repeat of Carlo's second season from his last stint. At least, last time we could blame the injuries. This time it's just poor team performances, which also is partially to blame on Carlo. I don't think he gets another season if RM goes trophyless though. I guess Zizou better wait before taking his next job...