Go back a few months on the transfers thread and see how the planning of players for the future never considered getting any midfielders. People here actually believed that Isco/Ceballos/Llorente would be the guys who would eventually replace.. Modric & Kroos .. How many times I've read here we have a stacked up midfield.. ? Subs did not play more because they are not that good.. it happened under Zizou as well last season.
I'm not sure what to say really. Who are these 'people'? Aren't these 'people' allowed to closely evaluate and then decide whether a player is good enough? Also, aren't these 'people' allowed to change their minds? Furthermore, what is this non sense about people and agenda's? People can have preferences, sure, but they are also free to choose to keep things positive (instead of thinking everyone is bad and we need to kick out everyone except for example Navas) etc. For me (looking at this relatively from the outside), it looks like just another discussion about nothing (nothing meaning: "I was right all along and now I'm gonna let everyone have it for not listening" (as if that would have made any difference)). But hey...I could be wrong!
I still believe Llorente can develop into a world-class defensive mid and starting Madrid quality. Unfortunately for him, Casemiro is the youngest one in the starting group.
Didn't have much to do honestly and couldn't do much on the goals either. The only thing that I was able to pick up on from this very limited time was that his ball distribution seems to be better than both Navas and Courtois.
Which of these midfielders did you think had a “bad” game yesterday? And elaborate on why they had a bad game if you don’t mind.
You are making shit up. We discussed midfield options prior to shit storm. Not surprising considering the events in last seasons in which complacency and motivational issues were highly probable. Not to mention we dropped quality with loaning James, Kovačić and co. plus having aging squad. As for players you have mentioned. Isco has proven his quality. One abnormal season does not change that. Llorente - my position, is he has capacity to be a starter. As for Ceballos he was always presented as talented player who needs to develop. The issue was complete collapse of regulars. With "vintage" Modrić and Kroos + rotations, story would be substantially different and things would be much easier for rotational players.
Is an agenda because only under Zidane people would say it is the players who are bad but under Solari it was the manager.. - that is short sighted, also ignoring that these players were already bad when they were eliminated last year in CdR under Zidane. Perhaps what we can take from this is that some people think players deserve many chances/years and be tried in various positions (10, CM, LM, RM..false 9, etc) , under x, y, & z conditions, under various managers, under certain air temperatures and field levels in order to conclude if they are good enough whereas others think the best players, worthy of playing for this club, would always rise to the top no matter the conditions they are thrown in.. (see Vinicious)
What Solari agenda..? He took over the team in a time when no other manager would even look at us.. and he did the best he could based on his limited managerial experience. If is not for Solari Reguillon would most likely had never gone to the National team.. but oh he didn't play fat Isco so he is the worse that could've happened to the club..
I don't particularly think midfield was the problem, although I would agree players like Llorente and Ceballos would have benefited from being eased into the team rather than being thrown to the lions during a crisis. For me the biggest busts were Isco and Bale who have been clamoring for more "responsiblities" (aka untoucable status) and Asensio went in the opposite direction claiming he had no responsibility to the team, that it was up to others.
Funny thing from this i told you so from @robnycus in regards to our midfielders is that all of them had a decent to good game ( none scored below a 7) the 2 CMs scores a goal each while the DM ( as per his stats and the usage of one’s eyes ) had a good game, especially when you consider he hadn’t played for nearly 2 months. It’s hard to assess games when you don’t actually watch them.
Nowhere in my post did I say any midfielder was “bad”, nor was anyone spectacular either, however against the bottom team in the league at home, I am sure some fans who have more faith in some of these players than I do expected a better performance from them, I could be wrong. it all looked rather chaotic at times, lacking control in the middle of the park and much like when the starters play, including giving up goals and numerous chances against mediocre opposition whilst creating chances but struggling to score, that’s a personal opinion, everyone has their own views, but it was just one game, as I have also pointed out, I still think our main problem is a striker
Not this post but your “ how did our fluid midfield did compare to our static one “ certainly seemed to imply as much but I will take you at word. We looked shaky because Huesca executed their counters well, they only had about 30% of the ball and most of their counter started with big switches from flank to flank not through the middle, There was also the matter of our LB not tracking back and one of our CB being below bar. Not to mention Huesca are fighting to stay in the primera, this was never going to be a walk in the park. Don’t get me wrong though I think we should reinforce our midfield come summer despite initially not being of the opinion we needed to but anyone who claims they were somehow bad yesterday either didn’t watch the game or simply doesn’t have a clue.
I said decent to good because I dont think any player aside from Benzema had a MOTM like performance. The midfielders however were the least of our problems yesterday and they certainly didn’t look any worst than the others did against Celta. Oh and Llorente has looked better after a two months injury than Casimero had the past couple of months.
Well it seems some go into games wishing some of our players would fail, they want this so much they can’t even be factual about it, when that happens it need to be called out.
I’m not sure how that implies that I thought any of our midfielders were “bad”, nor did I invent those lables, I used terminology I got from this board to describe the different combinations of players and hadn’t seen the game yet But we can say all this about all our poor performances, bring out reasons why we are overrun, whether they execute their counters well or attack down the flanks, whether one player is having a more rubbish day than the others, whether teams are fighting for points to either gain a CL place, trying to win the league or trying to avoid relegation all valid reasons at any time why teams have given us problems, none of it excuses or exonerates our own players performances no matter who is on the pitch though so that stuff can’t be ok for some but not for others IMO I agree, the team has had a cycle, time to freshen up in all departments IMO This seems to be true, but on both sides of the debate
You use those labels sarcastically though, and true you hadn't seen the game but im sure you'd read the comment section prior to making yours and had seen all the negativity towards the players. Im not excusing our display and i agree we should be doing better against teams like these no matter but i wanted to pointed out that it was down to more than just " the midfield didnt have control', i'm not attributing that quote to you personally but i have seen it being thrown around. Yep, i'd like to see another CB on top Militao, 2 CMs, Hazard and possibly another wing forward and a 9 Fair enough.
All i see here are the same negative people spewing their negativity after a bad game. This taking joy in the team suffering only because it makes you "right" is a weird thought process. One which I will never understand. This squad is finished...….. their cycle is over, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that. It needs serious rejuvenation. Having said that there are players here who could be great squad/rotational players like Ceballos/Llorente. No way should they be sold just because they aren't good enough as prime Kroos or Modric or have inconsistent games. They are given inconsistent mins or have injuries at the wrong time. We should be so lucky to have quality players like them forming the bench. There are some who definitely should be replaced. Nacho and Marcelo at the top of that lost along with Bale. I am sure the club will do it's best this summer and that means spending what we can (not 500M which we can't). Does this mean we won't be able to hit all areas of need? Yes. Could be that the right player isn't available even if we want to spend big money? Yes. This isn't a one summer job. Team has nothing to play for so it plays like nothing. Zizou should try out as many younger players as possible in the remaining games to judge them for the summer. I understand that watching this is hard but i'm not gonna get mad after a bad performance (we still won thank you Benz) when our season is finished and we are playing youngsters even if its against the bottom sides. Get mad for what we did against Barcelona earlier in the year. Against Ajax. People who are on here just to revel in our failures and win the "I told you so" trophies should not be taken seriously.
lol.. some of you guys getting all bent out of shape because I told you so.. is hilarious. I truly struck a nerve here..
For people who don’t engage as much it’s very tiering. Just 4 or 5 regulars repeating the same Ideas over and over, nobody giving in an ounce.
That's not true. You got stats to back this up. Pics or it didn't happen. I was right tho. You called it wrong, season wasn't lost because of midfield. We could have taken the deal on Modric and spread his minutes around to keep players in form and motivated. The real problems were elsewhere like keeping Bale, selling Ronaldo and not buying someone who can put Benzema on the bench.