I’d have taken Ramos back in a heartbeat but availability of Nacho and persistent refusal of Alaba to play as fullback probably prevented us from making that move.
He also can't play at a high level twice a week anymore. We could have used the past couple seasons to work a replacement into the lineup by affording them the opportunity to play and use Dani who can still play at a high level when healthy and rested. I hope we look hard at this situation this coming summer.
He’s too senior now and another one of those heavyweights to allow the management to sign another RB.
Kinda hard to argue having a backup when you are injured as often as he is. We have had lots of RBs coming through our academy and in a sensible world we'd have one with the first team that could take those minutes, train at high level and over time take that role.
He'll move to Saudi and a faction of fans will blame him for "f*cking us over" when Perez doesn't sign a replacement because Hakimi will be available for free in 2026.
We know the drill: “In Valdebebas they say the board has full faith in Lucas Vasquez”. I think we'll extend his contract in the summer.
Funny because that’s exactly what I think of Alaba at LB. He doesn’t have the speed to cover up when he’s inevitably caught up front nor the agility or dribbling skills to go one on one against opposing players when attacking. I don’t know, I was never impressed with him in the few times he played there for us. There’s a reason why he was moved away from LB at Bayern. Anyway, my opinion but as I said, I’m probably in the minority here.
The value of a player remains same or keeps increasing only if new alternatives are not allowed to enter the scenario.
I don't understand why people are obsessed with this idea that the reason we are atrocious is because of Kroos and Modric in the team. We have been awful in every match this season against weak teams and Modric and Kroos have barely had minutes this season. They are not starters. Some of you are gonna run out of excuses very quickly when you can't pin it on Kroos and Modric every week. It's clear the Squad is so unbalanced and badly planned and honestly overrated - there are many players that are not real madrid quality in key areas of the pitch (joselu,rodrygo,fran garcia) and this diamond formation that Ancelotti has been forced to play is complete horseshit. We will suffer a lot this season.
It's kind of weird how the club has made some very applaudable and brave decisions moving on from Ramos, Varane, Casemiro, Marcelo, Bale, Ronaldo, Isco, even if sometimes it was driven by the players themselves, but somehow LV and Modric they aren't willing to see what everyone else sees.
So by your theory, we are already handicapped with having no forward, so let’s double down and chop off our other foot by playing Kroos/Modric at the same time. Uh huh.
There was a report recently (could be total garbage like 99% of the stuff out there) that Florentino did not want to renew Modric but was persuaded and Modric expressed a big desire to stay. Lucas Vasquez....... he should be thanking Zizou every time that direct deposit hits, when it looked like Lucas' time at the club was about to end Zizou started playing him at RB and got him the new contract. If Carva wasn't so injury prone none of us would have big problems with Lucas being here, we have to have to some Spanish players and academy players as part of the squad.
LV would step in front of a bus for the club if asked. I don’t have issue with him as a deep squad player. I do take issue with him getting more minutes over Nacho at RB who is a superior player in all aspects to LV.
Definitely agree with you. I've campaigned for that myself especially now that Fran is part of the squad and his best attribute it providing width, pace and crossing from that left side which mean we can afford to play a more defensive RB in Nacho. Maybe Carlo sees Nacho as too slow to play against modern wingers and Lucas can at least keep up somewhat. Idk.
IDK as well, Nacho is actually pretty fast - granted he’s a little older but I don’t think that is the issue; https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/10-fastest-football-players-in-the-world#
No I'm not saying we should start Kroos and Modric, I'm saying the problems run deeper than that. I think people are looking for a simple narrative to suit their agenda.
We still have some slack in the bench but it's improved massively from about the time when Bale finally left. At one point we had 6 or 7 guys in the squad that wouldn't play with a few on massive wages like Mariano and Hazard.
There problems we can’t fix such as creating a WC forward on our roster from thin air, and there are problems that we can inflict on ourselves like playing Modric/Kroos together. I don’t know how much more of a sample size you need to see that for big games, they cannot be on the pitch at the same time, let alone as starters.
We absolutely need academy and Spanish players but again we could and should be using that sort of spot on a young product of our academy who over time could transition to our starting RB. With Dani's injury history and fitness there has been plenty of opportunity to provide minutes and we do produce a decent number of fullbacks.
Yeah but come on. If you don't find another solution than putting Joselu as your starting 9, you've forfeited the season. Maybe it fails... but Madrid needs to try and play a system that takes the traditional 9 out of the equation. It sounds a bit cliche... but Carlo needs to find a system that fits the squad. And our squad does not have a top-tier level CF. Just the way it is.