No Retreat, No Surrender - El Espartano Alvaro Arbeloa Manager Thread

We’ll see big changes when old man leaves.

Summer we’ll splash cash on an injury hit Rodri and believe we’re back.

 

Arbeloa needs to go hard on the team...if he is being replaced anyway he has nothing to loose. Train harder, get some systems build in the team etc. The team looks like headlees chickens atm...so now it is time to step up or it can be really ugly before season end.

 

Yeah, that's not happening.

 

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"Sad but true" like the title of one of my favourite songs....but really...these young men are making millions. They have to learn discipline and workrate at some point. Else no manager will have a chance to change anything.

 

Sadly, this isn't even rock bottom. What has happened to our favorite football club? How long before the socios can vote out Florentino and his board for loss of confidence? This is eerily similar to Man Utd's shambolic management after SAF retired.

 

Well, at least with Xabi, the team almost always won over teams they should beat. With Arbs, its a tossup.

The club thought introducing anyone would fix things, only for them to get worse.

This season can't get over soon enough.

 

Perez wants a coach who will execute his vision rather than impose their own. He used to get away with it when we had Modric, Kroos, Benzema, etc. to cover the flaws but it has all come crashing down. Until he’s willing to admit his approach has failed, the club will continue drifting between highs and avoidable lows.

 

City rested their A team in their latest match so they can be rejuvenated for Wednesday. My hope is that Real Madrid avoids an embarassing result. With Xabi, even when Madrid lost to the big teams, at least the ganes were close (Man City, Barca).

 

Uncle Flo collected players like he was a newbie collecting pokemon cards and throwing them all in a deck.

 

I mean this team can't win CL. Still as a fans good to believe, but it's true. So i'm looking into matches quite calmly.

 

I think the correct word you are looking for is "hope". One has to suspend one's logic and objective reasoning to believe this year will amount to a UCL trophy.

 

The club's obsession with the UCL is moronic. We have 15. I personally don't care if we don't win another UCL in the next 5 years.

RM should have focused on domestic domination especially in a period where Barcelona is financially shot. LaLiga was always more winnable, we have just one main opponent.

 

Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/nar2FNFpQq8?si=XbETz_v5L4lrHTEx

Gareth Bale dropping a 100% truth gem. Zidane didn't need tactics. Ancelotti didn't need tactics. They knew how to get the best out of the massive egos that comes with the superstars of Real Madrid. They knew how to make the players buy in to put the team first. The 100% willingness to fight for the badge and respect for the manager was a big factor in their successes.

Alonso and Arbeloa are unfortunately suffering from severly hampered squad depth and injury problems, compounded by requirement of structure. Real Madrid does not play with structure. It plays with limited strategy, but maximizes its strengths and covers enough of its weakness to get a net positive result. That cycle is now broken. No manager (that is available) will fix this at this point without fundamental changes from the top. This squad had multiple national team captains. Incredibly brilliant minds like Kroos and Modric. Like insane footballing IQ. You had absolute warriors like Ramos, Modric, Pepe, Benzema, Casemiro and Cristiano. People who would never quit and never accept mediocrity. There were also the often neglected but equally important players who gave everything and willingly sacrifice for the betterment of the team: Nacho, Marcelo, Vazquez, Isco, Asensio just to name a few.

The Florentino Perez era must end so that the players can be given less power in this team to put themselves above the needs of the team. There is zero humility, zero competitive spirit, zero character/personality, zero sacrifice. Florentino will remain one of, if not the greatest president in Real Madrid's illustrious history. But he has clearly lost the plot. His squad planning has been disastrous for at least half a decade. His inability to mediate delicate situations also makes this a recipe for further unmitigated disaster.

Max Allegri and Jurgen Klopp would also likely fail here for the reasons above.

Also, Barcelona will likely overtake Real Madrid as the most successful La Liga team with most league titles, likely within our lifetimes. This has been a huge, often neglected facete of the Florentino Era. It is his biggest failing. It will also be his biggest detraction. A team as broke as Barcelona has won 3 of the last 5 league titles. For shame.

 

Then Florentino should not have sabotaged Carlo just to ensure he failed. He insisted on dealing Carlo the worst hand possible, then gave the same problem to Xabi only with less of a leash. Signing a frequently-injured RB, keeping the CB depth appallingly shallow and only 1 good LB is intentional negligence. He saw Real Madrid had a vertical distribution issue and decided to bank it all on Alexander Arnold. There has been zero box presence for 2 years and counting on this squad. There are 3 natural Leftwingers. Absolutely bonkers moves.

Poor Arbeloa is just now a punching bag so that he can take all the heat while the team fumbles its way through the rest of this catastrophic season. Florentino has had his hands all over this manufactured problem. Florentino simply ignores the glaring issues and passes the buck to the next manager, who is asked to perform a miracle. There is no Carlo/Zidane to bail him out this time. Hansi Flick is cooking this team with a buncha La Masia products.

 

Because we’ve cycled through Carlo, Xabi and soon Arbeloa it kind of proves this group of players, as a collective, isn’t working.

Ego driven hero ball and just not being as good as they think they are is what makes this team so bad.

we have to change a certain amount of players before we settle on a coach. There isn’t any coach that can fix this group.

 

But of course you can. We can all appreciate Florentino for being the greatest president in modern history, but that doesn't mean he's guaranteed to be the president forever. That's why we have elections. Real Madrid has been around long before Florentino Perez, and will still be around long time after Florentino Perez is gone. His departure is always going to be perceived as a seismic event, no matter how much everyone tries to postpone the inevitable. I'm not saying it has to happen immediately, but it will be soon.

What we also need to factor in is that Florentino's modus operandi ("method") has changed over the years. This guy went from buying the biggest stars - galacticos, to letting Mourinho having full control over every transfer (even sacking Valdano for it), to shifting his transfer policy into buying overpriced young players hoping they pan out and re-sell them later on. This guy went from shitting all over players and calling them stupid in those leaked conversations, to now protecting them like he is their grandpa. Florentino also realized in the middle of his 2nd presidency that he has a chance to compare himself to Santiago Bernabeu - which drove most of his decisions going forward.

I don't see one continuous never-changing epoch ("method") of Florentino Perez. His approach has been changing in many ways. Whether that's down to his ability to adapt, or down to him being impressionable and influenced by people in his immediate surroundings, visions of grandeur or just old age...

The fact is Florentino failed in recruitment policy, not just him directly, but out scouting as well. I understand a large factor in all of that is the fact the market landscape has dramatically changed over the years, but there are some decisions that make absolutely no sense whatsoever and leave you scratching your head. To a point where you really have to ask if Florentino is simply getting too old for this gig.

 

This is true. But it would be easier to extend this type of lenient understanding to Florentino if he operated under these same principles when it came to his coaches. He's the first to cultivate the culture of finger pointing and sacking as soon as results are not great.

It's only natural he'll run out of excuses and scapegoats at some point if things don't turn around.

 

I agree with you on Xabi. But I was more addressing the points about Florentino regardless of which coach is being discussed.