First Makelele, now Di Maria

Hard to say

When we sold Makelele we did not have a single replacement to play DM and we thought we could get away by playing Guti and Beckham in the middle

Although we failed to address a suitable DiMaria replacement we still have Illarra in the team who is more than capable of playing CDM and of course Kroos/Modric to play CM, sure they might not create as much but lets not forget we were the only team who relied on our b2b player to provided creativity, all the other teams use tgeir forward line for that so be it they like it or not they wil have to start doing so if e are to improve again

thing is teams don't usually rely on their CMs to assist goals. Only Cesc Fabregas is capable of that but in a formation that suits him and his inability of tracking back. Most teams either use their winger (in 433/442/4222 etc) or AM (in 4231/4312/4132 etc) to be the assist makers, we were just blessed with a guy who could do it all bar score regularly.

Kroos/Modric/Illarra are brilliant passers of the ball but just not penetrative passes but I would not consider that their job anyways so would not judge them on that.

James and Isco might get some assists here or there but they are not better, in fact I see them all on similar levels when it comes to creativity, they just happen to like chilling with the strikets scoring goals neglecting their defensive duties

ANY CM/B2B we have been linked with can't create either instead we feel they would be solid in the midfield providing good passing outlets and physicality

Again I'll repeat it we were just blessed with having a one in a million kind of player who provided creativity from midfield and had the speed and lungs to get back to defensive duties without problems. You won't find that kind of player right now so it's pointless to give the others jobs they obviously can't do

@Hala. Bayern have Robben and Ribery who participated heavily in flow + build up and provided a lot of assists each... our wingers are nothing like them.

See that's where the problem is, as you said our wingers are nothing like them. This shortcoming was masked by DiMaria because they only needed to make good runs and they would score. That's not how you should play in a 433, the responsibility of creating chances are on the fullbacks and wingers, Ronaldo can do it but Bale can't in which case we should switch him with James and try it that way.

It's also important to have an out and out striker in that case who you can cross to but we don't have that right now so we are in a bit of dilemma

Barca have Iniesta, Xavi, Rakitic, etc. Chelsea have Cesc, Mata and Oscar. City have Silva, Nasri and Yaya. Juve have Pirlo and Marchisio + Pogba and Vidal are not half bad at final balls either. Etc.

Iniesta does not play final balls that much and the last time Xavi did it was probably 4 seasons ago lol. Rakitic used to be an AM for Sevilla but he has a restricted role at Barca, he can play those balls but won't be able to do it regularly. Barca are over reliant on Messi and Alves to create stuff for them. In fact the best way to keep Barca quiet is to keep Messi quiet. They obviously added another matchwinner now to survive in that situation.

Chelsea again rely on their wingers and their fullbacks firward runs. City rely on their attacking midfielder Silva, Juve have/had only Pirlo but he mostly does it from his own half lol, I don't even know what they will do when he soon retires or becomes a liability. We were the only club who used or wingers to score goals and our b2b to create. It is ok in the short run but in the long run we need our wingers to participate in build ups etc. Will be probably be like teaching Bale a foreign language but we can try lol

We're HOPING that James has a similar impact as he did at Monaco. In a 433, i doubt it tbh... at least for his first year. Other than that, we have nobody that have a reputation for creating that final pass out of the midfield.

It won't happen because not only is James an ordinary player with talent he is actually greatly overrated. He was just like any other player at Monaco but his excellent WC is what made people think he had it in him to absolutely beast for us lol. Might happen sometime in the future because he does posess some raw talent but we don't know whst might happen in the future. The best midfield is the one that can recycle the ball between both our wings all the while getting back and defending if we lose the ball

Remember that we play with 3 strikers up front. They're used to receiving balls, not creating them consistently.... well Benz does; but he's in a strange position. We need him to stick to the CBs and there's not much passing he can do from there. IF we actually let him dezone all the time, then it would compensate some.

I agree, but that is the wrong approach that had nobody asking questions at the time because they scored and we won........ until it was up to them to actually create something. I agree it would be better if Benzema played in a role not being CF because he is not and will never be a CF. I liked him on the wing and would like us to try him there more

I won't even get into the defensive disaster that our midfield has become. It would just make me too worked up

That's just because Carlo's insistence on playing an AM at LCM when that will get us nowhere. If he played players where they should be played instead of trying to fit a suare pig in a round hole I don't think it would be a mess honestly. We are probably going to play the Modric/Illarra/Kroos midfield vs Atleti so we should definitely see how it holds up defensively