The team doesn't know how to play with a CF in the box, we don't play like that and I don't see how Jovic would come in and have an immediate impact given how we play. Jovic has looked miserable at times and that is on him but it's not all on him. And to your point about having an immediate impact, we've gone hundreds of minutes with Benzema doing little many times in his career so I'm not ready to buy into the idea that a player needs to have an immediate impact. never mind the questions it raises with Bale.
To be honest i haven't seen Jovic make many runs into the box except in situations where we moved the ball to wings and are about to cross, thats one of the thing i found very disappointing about him, i expected that he would be making runs behind the defenders but so far he's been coming back pretty deep like Benzema.
I think he looks very uncomfortable, to me it looks like he's being asked to play in a way that is very new to him and he's not doing very well with it. But again it's also clear the squad has no idea how to play with him either.
What's even the point of dominating a game and not being able to shoot? I'll go with my opinion that we struggled a lot. Couldn't shoot, crosses were all cleared by their defense, their counter-attacks were dangerous. Sure we passed the ball from side to side in midfield for long stretches but unfortunately, that doesn't win games.
I think you're both raising important points. The lack of shots and excessive crossing was poor but we recycled possession fairly comfortably. There were a couple times in first half when I thought, they are going to score in transition and also perhaps we should have played a little more open and less conservative so we could catch them out. I think it's entirely possible to snuff all the life out the game to a point where it's two lines of defense bunkering and nearly impossible to score for a team like ours that doesn't have line breaking dribbling from a finisher or close quick one two passing in tight spaces to get through.
We did shoot, a couple of those shots were inches away from going in, Casemiro’s strike for example, just because the shot wasn’t target doesn’t mean we didn’t shoot. There were many half chances that didn’t end up being goals only thanks to some very good last ditch defensive efforts by Celta.
We lost because we played the game like it was a guaranteed win. The players started the match clearly not up for it and once Celta scored their confidence grew and they gave everything into bunkering down and defending their lead. We stepped it up and dominated up until we took the lead, then we switched back into cruise control and we started playing like the game was over. We had several attacks where players were more interested in showboating/having fun than just killing the game off. I understand without Varane's errors we would have still won, but had we had our head in the game they wouldn't have had the chances to create those varane errors.
It has happened on quite a few occasions this season. Remember our second game of the season against Valladolid. We were leading 1-0 and we had Casemiro Lucas high fiving n all just for winning a free kick in the 85th min. 88th min Valladolid scores and 2 points dropped.
Yeah he was part of the French connection that lost us those points. However we should expect to score two goals against one of the worst teams in La Liga and win. That is why Varane is the main culprit. Even if we scored three, it felt Varane would find a way to give them a third as well.
We need to get back to what this team has mostly been about since I began following, and that is scoring goals, I love that we’ve been very strong defensively for most of the season, but I despair that the team struggles to score, a good balance would be nice, but as I have mentioned before the Madrid that I know was mostly built on the ability to outscore opponents no matter what, not so much on the solidity of defense, I am enjoying the solidity but, the bluntness upfront needs to be remedied somehow.
That’s not a matter of system though, we play well currently, it’s a matter of personnel, we just don’t have goal scorers on our roster currently. The great thing about this squad is when we finally add a goal scoring machine or two this team would have no weaknesses.
We actually have a typical number 9 who is a scorer (Jović) but we don't use him properly or the system in which he plays doesn't suit him. We should've played with Benzema and Jovic both starting in the 41212 diamond formation with Isco behind them.
Well I don’t know about “ no weaknesses” but certainly far far fewer, much better balanced, this is what I am hoping for as well