REAL MADRID vs ATHLETIC BILBAO | La Liga Jornada 18 | 22.12.19 | 21:00 CET

Few thoughts overall. Courtois getting much better in goal, he's looking much more comfortable in goal. Jr looks like the real deal to me but he's got a lot of work to do with his finishing. Modric with rotation could be a very good player for us even perhaps into next season.

Our shape overall is better in past month or so but same old issues are present tonight with Fede having a deeper role. We desperately need those runs into the box. I think we win with Casemiro in the lineup and Fede in his usual role.

 

I agree about Bale. That sub was strange. He is toast. Zero creativity, and speed has left him. Plus mentally he has checked out. I don`t get it really.

As for the system. I find our performances highly polarizing. We are able to do great stuff, but also awful stuff. Not just match per match, but half time per half time. We definitely have issues. I think we need more tactical continuity.

As for Jović. For me, there is absolutely no argument on this planet that would warrant him getting the least amount of minutes out of all forwards. He should be at the top, only stone cold behind Benzema and Hazard. Instead we have already spent half of the season and entering into second and much harder part with much higher stakes, while having just one prolific forward, two teenagers, Welsh Junk, injured Ballon D Or and Serb who looks like depressed version of Mariano.

 

Couldn't agree more, yet I dont get why we only won 2 LaLiga in 9 years of him being there ...

 

I got made fun of at the transfer thread before the game against Valencia for asking a second goal scorer. Oh well, I hate to be right in this case.

I said it back when Ronaldo was around. The game of football is nothing liked a video game, but it is actually liked a video game. If you have a team full of players who are without "goal scoring prowess", your team cannot score.
When Ronaldo was around, he still had Benzema and Bale with him. He had Asensio of the bench. Benzema is no Ronaldo and he does not have anyone.

 

It's funny because he has no problems winning leagues anywhere. Seems it's more of a problem with us than him.

 

I missed this game, looks like it’s a good thing I did, seems to have been the same old same old, play relatively well, lack of creativity in the final third and wasted chances, I worried about goalscoring at the start of the season, guess it remains a problem, can’t put all the eggs in the Benz basket, meh

 

The reason is Messi, he had no leo in PL or let alone Italy.

 

This is a shit shit result and there's no excuse for it. Unacceptable.

 

Also, playing at home against teams that are going to put like 9.5 men behind the ball, there is zero reason not to start Jovic and Benz together up front and see what the kid can do.

 

Yes thank god he went to Juventus otherwise how else would they have won their 8th league title in a row

 

He would have hit the post too.

It ain't like we haven't seen this voodoo type weird terrible lucky a lot the past decade.

We have scored one goal in three matches. We have hit the post like six times in that same span.

********

 

1 goal in the last 3 league matches is terrible form however you put it - even given the circumstances. The bright side is that we have also just conceded 1 in that time which bodes well for the future, but I think the glaring lack of foresight with which our team was planned this season is showing now - this team has very few goals in it in general.

The one unexpected bust turned out to be Jovic who can't score a goal to save his life. But apart from him there's just Benzema. No idea why Mariano hasn't got a run.

Bale was a key contributor of goals but his lack of ********s given is hurting us more than we can see.

Hazard makes our play better but so far has not been a credible goal threat.
Isco makes our play better when he's on form but is not a goal threat.
Vazquez is not a goal threat.
Kroos, Modric, and Fede are not goal threats.
Vinicius is about 5 years away from being a goal threat.
Rodrygo is 18 years old and can't be relied on to be a goal threat.

The only players in our squad who I can see actually contributing meaningful goals over the coming months are Benzema, James, and Mariano if he gets enough chances, or Bale if by some miracle he turns it around. We need a right winger who can score 10-15 goals/season asap.

 

Fair points; and I agree with all of them honestly, but I also think their positivity doesn't do enough to hide our structural problems. Every major team has at least 3-4 regular goalscoring threats - Barca, City, Juve, Liverpool etc., while we have like 1 guy at this point. The last 3 games I see our problem being having to rely on the Hazards/Casemiros of our team to chip in with goals here and there, and that leads to 0-0 draws when they don't show up. If we had more regular goalscorers in the team, I think at least 1 of the last 3 games we would have won.

I think also with regards to the point of sticking with young players, it feels like the middle way so far has worked best for us - where players who are/were clearly not ready for the first team (like I don't believe Vinicius is) go and get that experience elsewhere. Just off the top of my head I am thinking of Carvajal, Casemiro, Vazquez, Asensio; and currently Odegaard and Achraf.

 

We can look to other root causes for the lack of goals (e.g. James, Hazard, etc.) but the prominent factor is what you outlined above -the forward youngsters.
We have invested ca. €145m on Vini, Rodrygo and Jovic, they are the goal-scoring forwards we have in the squad (in my opinion more so than Hazard). We’ve invested a lot into them, and I’m not just talking about the financial aspect.
We’ll need them to come good, consistently, at some stage.

 

Yes, agree, the problem is that we don’t have the “forwards” contributing enough goals, including Bale.

 

it is depresing wathcing cross after cross without CR7,it is a disaster

 

The last thing we need is a 35yo Ronaldo who's getting outscored by nobodies.

 

I have given up on Jovic for this season. I don't know if he can become a better player next season here or elsewhere.

 

We had Benzema going into 6 months + slump, and people were saying:"we need to play him so he can hit form!". Now with 22 year old Serb in his first 6 months in Spain, the laws of the Universe change and he needs to find form.... while being on the bench. Fascinating really.

Why have we invested 60M when Mariano could have played bench role perfectly?

 

I know how to solve our scoring drought!!

Play James as a 10

 

That is my point, we have invested heavily in young players that we will just need to wait on. We can’t now all of a sudden reverse that strategy and start spending big on “ready-made” players at the detriment of other areas that need reinforcing.