Whew....lucky to win in some ways. We had enough chances, but man oh man, Messi's 2nd was clutch. Tough place to win for sure. Three points, and now Madrid has to win or face the prospect of being 4 or 5 points off the pace already.
Wow, results like this, on the road, after being down most of the match, go a long way over the course of the season.
Lucky win. Played OK in the 1st half and didn't deserve to be down. 2nd half was horrible and the ref gave us a hand. Gotta say ... straight red for protesting is highly unusual. I wonder what Punal said to the ref. 3 points in the bag but we really need to play better away from home.
Sonavabich. I had to step out around the 70th minute and tbh wasn't feeling to bad about that thinking I would be sparing myself of more frustration. Then I come back on, check out SPORT and my jaw drops. Wtf?!
It's normal that a team can't play like a dram all the matches, and normal that early in the season the team is only on the path to finding the peak form, and normal that when there are many matches in a short time, not all can be played 10/10, and further normal that tough away fixtures are called tough for a reason, and normal that if you go concede the first goal against a good opponent, it's never easy. What can we learn from this match? I dunno. Maybe away fixture problems are a mental thing for us, and we should do something about that. But I don't think we should overestimate our badness tonight, as some percentage of the win was down to performance, not just luck.
I don't expect Los Putitos Azules to do any favors for us today, so getting these 3 points was key. We really need to fix these concentration gaps that hurt us here in Llorente's goal and last Thursday against LPB.
I have decided that I might have to fly to the final of the copa del rey once we get there and hope if we win as I will be enjoying my spending money of my bet next May just before I fly to Hong Kong As Rana Catesbeiana taught me, up los putos blancos and guess what Rana I have just found out, if we win the CDR, then I will get back £1000 for my £381
The team is way too dependent on Messi’s goals. it continues to be this way. Tello is a good player but he shouldn’t be a starter. Since Villa got injured last season Messi had to score a ridiculous amount of goals. It shouldn’t be that way. Mandril have Benzema and Higuain there as well to pick up the goal scoring.
Alexis needs to start scoring. Pedro could be key as well. But, I still think we should've gone after an older, seasoned striker. Drogba, Klose or even Trezeguet could've been good. I hear Del Piero is a free agent.
You're missing a party: the laughing to LPB has been happening with some very lolworthy posts in the other teams' thread for some time now. But yeah - great night: we managed to get a win after all and despite taking the lead and dominating, LPB fumbled it and in the end couldn't even get a draw. 5 points is 5 points.
I'm guessing the real party might be on the LPB forum but I don't like to go there, it is too tempting to post something. If anyone wants to post choice quotes from their other teams thread (as we came back) or their match thread, that'd be appreciated.
Puyol looked behind the pace all game. He was chasing the ball all over the pitch in normal Puyol style, but he's lost speed so it's starting to be a liability. And, yeah, we need some consistent finishing. I think when we're behind and facing a wall of defenders on the 18 yard line, Messi should drop deep to create and either Villa or Sanchez should play up front in the middle.
This is more of a season thread thing but Madrid may 'right their ship' in a big hurry if they can just win the SuperCopa on Wednesday and they're not in bad position to do so with their 2 away goals and only down a goal and playing at home. Basically, on Wednesday they either have the worst possible start to their season (down 5 points in Liga and losing SuperCopa) or they can shrug it all off if they beat us. Either way I think they do sign Modric and possibly another player (but who/where, Maicon is past it, are their other Portuguese National Teamers who could vie for PT on RM)?
^ True, but Liga is still THE competition, and they're five points behind already no matter what happens in Wednesday. In Supercopa they're in a good situation, but we are at a better one. Also: they might splurge on Modric and Maicon, but are those guys really that much better than what they have? I don't think so.
I'll give my ratings tomorrow when I have some spare time, which I haven't much of today unfortunately since the game. It wasn't a very good performance from the team until the late stages which showed why I wanted Pedro in the lineup and Cesc not to be in over Xavi. He can't control the midfield the way Xavi does in this team and that's why we should go for our best options in these sort of games. These are the exact kind of games we lost points in last season but we managed to get the win in the end. Real's defeat was unexpected and surprising to hear about, so it was pretty much a fantastic day for us. Still, five points mean nothing at this stage and there are still another 108 points to fight for from now till June. We won't get away with a win with these kind of performances too many times this season, I'm sure. Something to work on and hopefully now we go to the Bernabeu, defend the Supercopa and the pride, and put more pressure on that boring manager of theirs and the mugs in their squad.
I think that Tito's subs were vital to gaining some control in midfield. Brining Messi closer Xavi gave gave Pedro and Sanchez some space to operate. Messi drew Midfielders towards him and that created some space to be exploited.
I agree that subs were vital, but I also liked our starting line-up anyway. There be will A LOT of matches this season that are going to be no easier than this, and we can't start with our best men in all of them. Five points obv "mean nothing" in a sense that we've just started the marathon, but they are five points still. Always better to be the one in the lead irregardless how many matches there are left.
I think we should have bought another main defender as Puyol is 35 and Pique isn't quite right lately. I also feel we need some sort of no 9 striker as well as Alexis is def not it