Ignore the trolls and clowns. Every regular isn't even quoting or responding to them. Now is their moment to shine. With that said what would any of us regulars regret saying? - That Varane is a dummy who costed us five points? - That Hazard has been a total bust? - That Benzema has been a horror show? No one would because that is what has happened. If those three would have their shit together we would be rolling into this CL tie against City confident and leading La Liga.. instead of broken, desperate and ripe for our season to end by Sunday. Besides the fsct we broke our tranfer record on him to show up overweight, get injured, take months to get in shape? Okay, then the fact he misses what would have been a game winner which would have led to him getting subbed off earlier because he doesn't have the balls or stomach for the pressure of scoring a gimmie one-on-one.
Still man I don't see it that way. It's a team sport. Mistakes happen everyone makes mistakes. If you focus on players Courtois cost us points in the start of the season and maybe the ucl group stage points that would have made us go first in the group and not have to face city. But he found his form and we forgot about that. Ramos has had some pretty bad games as well this season. But just because he or Varane is put in the position to make the mistake it doesn't mean that it still isn't the whole team's fault for not defending as a unit. The way football is now the whole team defends and the whole team attacks. Yeah Hazard came a bit overweight in the summer but that's not to blame for him being injured or making a while to come back. It's not his fault. He's unlucky and I'm sure this will make him perform even better when he's back or next year. And yeah he missed a game winner. Who hasn't? That doesn't mean he can't handle pressure. We haven't seen Hazard enough to judge him on this level that's what I'm saying.
This loss was soul crushing. I found myself with nothing to say yesterday, and I still can't bring myself to say much today.
Yes and even in team sports you're only as strong as your weakest link. Our wink links were; we struggle to score and we have defenders who can be problematic. He choked so bad on that one-on-one he didn't even get full contact on the ball. He mishit it and tripped over himself. Even ********ing Roysten Drenthe didn't nut up so bad he couldn't actually get a shot off.
You see my response. Wrath and anger. Haven't reacted this angrily about a match in a very very long time. What gives me the sinking feeling is the media and Zidane never addressed Varane screwing up offside traps last week. So he does it again this week. Still hasn't been addressed.... guess we should watch out. Literally.
I don't even care about that, that was a savable shot 999 out of 1000 times. I also think it's no coincidence there is a lack of coordination on the defensive line with Marcelo out there, we try to overcompensate. All of that is in one hand, and our inability to score is on another. We put out a very, very strong lineup and we should have created far more chances. Vinicius, in his limited time, created far more chances than the entire team the rest of the game.
He's played for over 15 years now. He's not going to become Salah tomorrow morning. Just not a goal scorer. The amount of times he dribbles away from a dangerous area to not lose the ball is the exact opposite of what we needed.
That's the different between attacking the goal and the opponent and eternally side stepping and spinning away from danger.
My fear with Rodrygo's development. Someone needs to kick him in the ass and make him press and run forward. He must do this now or he remain this passive shell that doesn't use his full talents.
Vini was basically dead to me at the start of the season but he looks like a killer right now. Should be starting every game IMO.
Don’t forget he is still 18. He has a lot to learn and improve over the upcoming years. People. Forget that casemiro, Carvajal and ashraf and Ødegaard went to a other clubs in order to be better for us.
I find myself strangely optimistic ahead of Wednesday lol maybe I’m deluded but last year we were doing well before heading into our second leg tie with Ajax and thought we had the game wrapped up then we ended up crashing out, this was followed by our devastating Copa exit and league loss to Barca. This year, the week is just as crucial to our season but we’re going in more pessimistic, who’s to say that the reverse won’t happen? And we salvage our season? Remember ATLÉTICO have struggled in the league all season and they beat Liverpool, the CL is a different beast and it’s also important to note that in our last two games we didn’t play our strongest 11; Valverde missed one and Mendy missed both while Hazard was coming back from a 3 months injury and is probably a downgrade from Vini at the current moment.
The chances of jovic starting alongside benzema or instead of benzema are as slim as zidane calling me to the team this week. It's Bale or LV
We shouldn’t need to salvage our season. This is the sort of year where we needed to create a gap at the top of the table going into El Classico and potentially having one hand on the title after the game was done. Now we’re talking about needing miracles to get into the CL quarters and not losing the league by Feb again.
It's always a new day and you pretty much can't do worse than the last two match days in the league. We can only improve.
If Benzema and Varane continue as they are this is the most likely scenario. We really needed somone to step up. We all thought it would be Hazard..
I out my trust in Ramos, casemiro and Kros to step up in crunch time. Add that Bale can always comes out with one shot wonder... So some optimism...
Well what’s done is done now, we can only look ahead, hopefully the players are as pissed as we are and come out fighting like every game is a final from now on.
If we play exactly the same (or even a little better) then we will get slaughtered. I'm optimistic that we're capable of playing a whole lot better and will do so, but "can't do much worse" isn't really the attitude that will get us there. Zidane's going to have to abandon some of his comfort picks and start to rely on guys like Vinicius, James and Jovic to help win a title. But if we keep banging our heads with Isco, Lucas and Modric hoping they find their goal scoring form then it's going to be a pretty anticlimactic ending.
Sorry, but like an old broken record I’ll say again, soo much this, other than the glaring misses, this was absolutely the most annoying moment of the match to me, I still cannot figure out what Courtois did there, just baffling
Not to put all the responsibility on Benzema but let's be honest, does anyone honestly think Benzema is a reliable goal scorer that you could count on for an entire league? I think he's been in incredible firm for 18 months or so and has struggling again. Add Hazard, who's never been a reliable goal threat and a huge question mark on the right and we are where we are right now. This attack is not good enough. Worse we haven't really worked on making it better, we're just crossing into the area ironically when our CF isn't even really comfortable playing off the shoulder of a center back. Our full backs haven't provided much but for me it's as much about the targets (or lack there of) as much as it is with Dani, Mendy and Marcelo not really providing good service.