An away match at 22:00 is just stupid to be honest. That might look great for foreign audiences and time zones but before a Monday morning this was tough to stay awake for.
I’m sure his time will come at some point to start, but to be honest no one has looked interesting on that right side so far no matter who’s “ahead” of whom
I really feel we should never play both Isco and Hazard together. They 'consume' the ball too much. Pair Hazard woth Rodrygo or Isco with VJ.
An interesting note re Casemiro, who is deservedly getting shout outs for an incredible season. Have always said that he isn’t bad passer, just an inconsistent one, more than capable of pulling off some crazy stuff. Well, my God, that pass to Isco(?). What a simply unbelievable ball. Anyways we would be completely f***ed without him. Club took a huge gamble and it’s paid off so far! Hope he stays healthy.
Timing of subs might be an issue, but we have already started games after the restart with numerous different lineups which shows our squad depth no? gotta look at the whole picture not just the part of it you don’t like, apart from the injured and the backup keepers, I can’t think of any players who have not played, if even only for a minute.
Main concern going forward has got to be that these were supposed to be two of our easier games and we didn’t manage to really rest some of our big guns. Could be an issue down the line. But I really think we can win every game.
Benzema needs a rest and so does Kroos now. I think the team as a whole look tired. Ramos and Varane need more rest as the defenders.
We will have the rest advantage again for our game on Thursday. Getafe playing today really sucks for them. So there's no excuses for Thursday, especially since we're not traveling for that game (home-field advantage might not count for much at this point but travel is still travel either way). Now, vis-a-vis Athletic Club, that's going to work against us on Sunday. About a 26 1/2 hour advantage over us, especially because that's an early game on Sunday. Very little turnaround time with travel added in. Barcelona play Villarreal away that same day but not until later. We would do extremely well to manage a draw at San Mames, but obviously a loss (depending on what happens in the midweek round) could take things completely out of our control. Which we can't afford at this point.
Well, to be honest we have to balance rest with winning, unfortunately Nacho is injured so one of Varane or Ramos will have to play for the moment, Carva too who is the one that worries me the most in that backline purely because of his injury record, I’m surprised we haven’t really seen much of Militao, I always read that we can’t play without Benz , that he makes us “tick”, maybe ZZ believes that as well , in the end though all the teams are playing by the same rules, I imagine if our team is getting tired so are all the others, we just have to get on with it and pull through
I just hope we don't injure our players and end up getting behind. Lets hope Barcelona screw up the next two games then we can afford to relax more in the coming games and rest players.
Getafe play a high-press, high-intensity game. Trying to play that way with such a compact schedule was always going to create problems for them. Call me over-simplistic but I really don't think that's a game we should be too concerned about. It should be three points. Their form simply hasn't returned and I'm not entirely sure it will. Hopefully I don't look stupid for writing this in a few days' time.
I'm honestly surprised at how great Varane has been since the restart. I thought for sure he'd get injured playing in this schedule. Perhaps we're gambling with not hooking the likes of Benz, Carvajal, Kroos, Varane and Ramos in an attempt to play chicken with Barca. Put pressure on them every game by only lightly rotating, getting the win and watch Barca break down.