Actually this is untrue. With James and Isco on the pitch we have more presence upfront which means much more balanced role of Marcelo and co., and with it less gung-ho offense which completely exposes you at turn-overs and fast-break attacks.
That is true. I am just saying that on the counter those three are too slow to track back. IMO playing James and Isco is overkill.. in modern football.. you don’t need two 10s on the pitch at the same time because you lose a spot for a more dynamic B2B type of midfielder. Zidane is the coach and I guess he knows what he’s doing.
Show me that situations in which they were to slow to track back. Besides, they are different type of AM. They can work given proper tactical layout. In short, it really depends on idea and implementation. Dynamic B2B - which we don`t have is not prerequisite for success. For example, as i said Isco and James with double pivot gives as creativity and better defensive structure. Substantially more than 4-3-3 which completely exposes us. I would send Kroos and Modrić on vacation, buy that Roca dude and rock double pivot with Casemiro. Then we could probably even afford Hazard playing as LM.
The team played well structured football in the first half. They didn't get a sniff of the ball, barely got into our half. We had lots of chances, but we overpassed at times. The subs just killed the flow. We went into desperation mode way too quickly, we ended up creating less chances than we were, and we just broke down as a team. The goal wasn't actually the product of a well constructed attack but rather a moment of brilliance by an individual.
One more thing to point out, in that first half how many of James vertical runs into the box were ignored by Isco, Kroos, Marcelo, Carvajal and co? It was only Benzema who would play him into the box. The irony is people demand Donny VdB but our own players won't even play the passes with a superior player they respect more in James. Has nothing to do with how they were instructed to play. They just refused to make the pass. At one point James was holding hands up like "wtf man?". If not for Carvajal's dumb ass we'd have went into halftime easily up 2-0. While Kroos and Courtois screwed up late, they were good (Well Kroos was) to that point. Carvajal was our only true shit player. Absolute trash performance.
Dani has been poor for a while and I just hate the way we play in the final third, we literally look like we want to score against the corner flags, we occupy the width and spray passes side to side and treat the box like it's lit on fire and filled with landmines.
1165604897108234240 is not a valid tweet id Honestly, Valladolid could have won if not for Ramos last ditch defending on one occasion and poor finishing like Guardiola missing a sitter right after we scored. Unal was waiting behind him for an easier finish too. We never got clear cut chances like this as they were well organised.
Even more awful.. so what they are doing on training ground? how its possible to have zero defensive shape.
Nothing better then a still shot taken out of context. Those are even worse than statistics. It is amazing people aren't smart enough to see not one of those agenda driven photos are from the first half. Not one are before desperation set in and we began attempting to chase a goal. I wonder if people actually understand what they are watching.... or at lesst understand if you're pressing forward to score and lose the ball you're naturally caught off guard and out of position. Just like this. It's literally mind numbing how people think we can chase the match attempting to score a goal against Valladolid who was defending for their lives and magically not give up counters from time to time when we purposely left ourselves exposed. The irony is had Zidane been more conservative and we had not scored the same people would be melting down about us having no urgency and Zidane being too scared to gamble to win it all. It is odd how many literally don't understand things at all. I use to hate talking American Football because of this, but I thought it was simply due to my experience playing versus the inexperience of the common man. I have never played futbol in high school, college or professional but damn I can at least understand those basics.
Problem is not charging forward It's kroos carelessly giving the ball away. But those passing stats bro!
He doesn't give that ball away the narrative is how we fought to win a match we'd have lost last year. People would be praising James, Benzema, Ramos, Bale and others performances instead of shitting on the team like we sucked. Just shows how flimsy people are. Ironic the same ones will be complaining about social media and others having zero attention span and needing immediate gratification when they are just as bad.
We were naive even after scoring. Vinicius gave away the ball at the edge of our own area with unnecessary pass, but we luckily got away with it. Guardiola chance they missed also came right after our goal. Even Ramos admitted we got complacent looking for the second goal. Can't expose both FBs so far up the pitch against a first division team when their mentality changed to score now as they needed a draw at 1-0.
Except it's more emphasis around the corner flags and Benzema sometimes dropping into center midfield.
I used to adjust the formation like this in winning eleven worked great in the video game....in real life, not so much
I don't understand the big deal with this pic, looks like the right decision to me. Varane is the one goal-side and clearly should be covering the far-post run, otherwise what is Varane even doing? Carvajal would not be able to cover it in time anyway. Meanwhile Casemiro needs to cover the run down the right wing since Marcelo is completely beaten, which means the player running into the center, left of the ball is about to be completely unmarked. And if that were not reason enough, one second later Ramos is beaten: Varane or Courtois should clean that up, or more glaringly -- we should be able to put more than a single goal past Valladolid. Barcelona let in two goals, but obviously no one is talking about their defensive frailty because they racked up 5 goals on the other side.
The big deal is that both Ramos and Carvajal made massive positional / movement error, which lead to goal. As seen in video, Casemiro was better positioned to close the center and possibly tackle ball carrying mid. Ramos should have continued his run towards the box and keep and eye for that RW until Marcelo manages to come back. While Carvajal should have continued sprint towards left winger which would allow Varane to take more central position and cover central part of the box; instead of cutting to the right and leaving Varane completely exposed with tons of space behind and in front. With this in mind, at worst you have 4v4 situation and with better space coverage, while in happened scenario you have 2v3 situation with tons of exposed space.