James should not play as a center midfielder, it should be Isco

We should bench Bale and put CR/benz up front... let Isco and James handle the corners and Modric/Kroos the middle. 442. It would work like a charm.

sportsczy wrote:We should bench Bale and put CR/benz up front... let Isco and James handle the corners and Modric/Kroos the middle. 442. It would work like a charm.

We would have won the league and CL with that formation last season . But it will never happen

sportsczy wrote:We should bench Bale and put CR/benz up front... let Isco and James handle the corners and Modric/Kroos the middle. 442. It would work like a charm.

It hurts, doesn't it? To know the solution and still can't do anything about it.

it would work against malmo. its too reckless a formation. two guys playing the same position, playing together. what happens when one or both gets hurt? which will happen, if they're playing all those games. i view kroos and modric as similar players, isco and james similar as well. it may even have worked in today's game, but in the long term, a season of 60 plus games, its too dangerous. especially when the entire formation and identity will change drastically if any of those guys gets injured. i'm not sure we will ever have an adequate solution for the rest of the season....all we will be doing is papering the cracks. a brilliant squad of individuals but poorly constructed

Tittosanttil.

I kind of disagree. We can't just scared of getting injured and not play the strongest line up. Does Barca bench one of MSN In fear of injury? No, they have none to replace them but all of them plays. When injury comes we deal with it our squad players. That's how it's done.

Also disagree with Modric and Kroos being similar. Kroos is best in an anchor role, a reference in midfield to spread the ball across. While Modric is a ball carrier if there was ever one, he is used to relive the pressure on midfield and its no wonder when we are pressed the ball ends up in modric's hand.

James and Isco are vastly different, I and that article I posted already talked about Isco's multi dimensional traits. His style is high work rate combined with quick link up and dribbling. While James is about final ball and crosses,a traditional no 10 in all sense, a supreme chance creator.

if luis enrique had his way, he won't have sold pedro, and with the talent of their front three, they can always alternate if any of them get injured. two we do have to be careful about injuries, very careful; we suffered a lot earlier this season, modric had a relatively serious injury last year due to fatigue, and james is injury prone. to throw all of that out the window and act like these guys are fit as fiddles is reckless.

kroos and modric are central midfielders, we can get deeper into technicalities, but they aren't tacklers, and without the ball kroos especially, zones out. neither of them is a workhorse. we have a sketchy defense, and as long as carvajal is out, two terrible right backs in danilo and arbeloa. i doubt kroos and modric are going to provide much needed anchor to the defense. kroos' best role was playing with javi garcia and schweinsteiger behind him, or schweinsteiger and khedira behind him in germany, not chasing and tackling people

that brings me to isco and james; neither of these two are wingers. neither is a brilliant crosser of the ball, nor are they robben-esque, in terms of cutting in and shooting with the stronger foot. and once again, there are two sides of the game; offense and defense. i doubt isco and james are going to provide much needed help to the full backs, who are going to need it. both players are attacking midfielders, they don't have winger traits, and can't tackle for shit...and i'm not sure  'isco and high work rate' belong together

once again, this will work against the getafe's and malmos of this world. it might have even probably today if villareal had played open-ended, which they wisely did not. but in a 60 plus season, and against teams that know what they're doing, this is suicidal. and what happens when we lose the ball? isco's good but even in his best position (as an attacking midfielder; not central, not wing), he's been known to lose the ball every now and again, now i expect he gives up some turn overs as a winger, who'll chase the ball; isco, kroos, james? only modric will give some effort on that end, but he isn't even a good tackler

i noticed the article referenced ancelotti. let's not get carried away, remember half the squad ended the season knackered and could barely run late on when we needed them the most. this formation reminds me of queroz' zidane, beckham, figo, guti (solari) midfield quartet. who's going to play defense? don't forget we are not exactly the best defensive side in the world. this may work in one or two games, but over the course of a season? don't bank on it

The Demon of Carthage wrote:

sportsczy wrote:We should bench Bale and put CR/benz up front... let Isco and James handle the corners and Modric/Kroos the middle. 442. It would work like a charm.

It hurts, doesn't it? To know the solution and still can't do anything about it.

Team selection isn't even that hard:

Navas
Carvajal
Varane
Ramos
Marcelo
Kroos
Modric
Isco
James
Ronaldo
Benzema

Anyone who doesn't like it, sell him. How hard can it be ffs.

Tittosanttil

I don't get how you say Isco- kroos- modric-james doesn't work. Our biggest ever winning streak came, 22 win including Destruction on Barca and several tough teams with the use of that exact same line up. And also don't get how your point of them getting knackered under Ancelotti as a proof that it didn't work. If anything it shows that Ancelotti got the first choice line up right but refused to rotate which he has been guilty of several other teams he has coached as well. Isco has high work rate with out that that formation wouldn't have worked like a charm. I don't get how can discredit a 22 game win streak that only ended because of Ancelotti's no rotation policy not because the tactics were bad.

Also the bottom line is everybody plays their best line up. Nobody benches their best players because of fear of getting injured. MSN played always even when Pedro was there dude, that is the reason Pedro left. He didn't get enough game time. We have much superior squad depth this season than last so I don't think one or two injuries are end of the world for us even if we get.

first of all, that wasn't the same line up for all 22 games. and to be perfectly  honest, i was never taken by the winning streak. it was good while it was on, but in a league where you can finish with 90 points and still lose, i've never put much emphasis on streaks till its close to the end. besides barcelona, (who had their own issues) none of those teams were teams i remotely thought could test us, and as i said, besides barcelona, the calendar had been pretty good to us. we didn't meet sevilla, atleti, nor valencia. and that group stage was hakuna matata (not to mention copa del rey opponents and unnecessary world club cup games)

just to be clear, i'm not bashing your ideas in any way, when i look at a formation, i'm thinking "can i trust this in crunch time"? i'm not thinking if it will work against guys like eibar,getafe et al. i'm thinking about latter stages of ucl, about atleti, barcelona. and if i'm thinking in that time frame, i expect the line up to have played a grueling number of games. as i've said throughout, i expect this to work against lesser teams. and even today, if we put out this line up, we probably would have won. but until i see it work i can't trust it in latter stages of a competition against a team that knows what its doing- not a good team in crisis, like say utd.

adit, my main point is, there are two ends of the floor. the fact we lack creativity doesn't mean we can throw defense under the bus like it doesn't matter. i don't mind us trying out that formation, i'm slowly losing hope in our season, but as far as building something sustainable, i don't think that's it. and as far as isco's work rate, i keep mentioning the sevilla game, especially that second goal. he's a fantastic player with the ball, but without the ball, he tends to stroll. in latter stages of a competition(against reasonable guys) that team will run out of gas

tito, that team played against Villareal at El Madrigal and they won (0-2). That team played against Bilbao and won (5-0). Beat Liverpool (0-3) and Barça (3-1). These are not in any way easy games or scrub teams.

One thing for sure, if that team played yesterday against Villarreal, they would've sunk the yellow submarine by half-time.

I completely understand your skepticism about that formation, but don't you agree that it's, at least, better than this one?

Point taken tittosanttil.. You don't believe in defensive stability of that formation and I agree defensively it is average but that is still better than what we have right now.

One clarification about the Seville game. We played 4312 only time that game. Isco played the 1... You can't expect that player to track the winger, that is the problem with that formation. 4312 is poor at defending wings and if you can remember we got destroyed on the wings especially Danillo's wing where he was poor and got no support.

@ the demon, any formation is better than this one (honestly i don't know what this one is). what i'd like is two ball winners in the middle and one of kroos or modric infront of them. i honestly don't know where isco ,james, or bbc will play because of the rubbish we've gotten ourselves into; but i'm not particularly fascinated by the football of anyone further up, whether it be bbc, isco, james. what i'd like is just for wingers to play like wingers, midfielders to play like midfielders....as long as danilo,ramos are in the defense, they need a miracle. marcelo's far from the best defender out there, but you know we are in danger when marcelo starts looking like the most reasonable person in the back four

You make a very compelling case and I agree with you. Still, I do believe that our problems, aside from Rafa's tactical cluelessness, are mostly caused by BBC. I think that Isco and James would look much better in a different setup with more hardworking strikers up front.

BTW, you did a tremendous job in the Villarreal vs Real Madrid thread. Kudos mate

This is getting embarrassing. Entire BBCJ plays just because they have to... Absolute bs.

exactly, the game changed when Kovacic came on for james, if it makes any sense given the context of what was happening

When Rayo had 11 men the workrate of these players was pathetic. Like James would literally walk and he was a fcking CM and Benz would drift in and out of offside positions. Horrendous professionalisms not following orders

halamadrid2 wrote:When Rayo had 11 men the workrate of these players was pathetic. Like James would literally walk and he was a fcking CM and Benz would drift in and out of offside positions. Horrendous professionalisms not following orders

+1

Any one saw flo's look in the end ? He wasn't happy.

Benitez out

I was actually pro Benitez.. I will gladly say I was wrong. Absolutely horrible coach.. The balls he has to keep playing that failure of a line up.

There are issues beyond Benitez, sure the players are in a bad moment and you can tell they arent enjoying themselves or enjoying life with Benitez. But you will change that and that will not make James know how to play CM or BBC defend harder.

Adit wrote:Any one saw flo's look in the end ? He wasn't happy.

Benitez out

I was actually pro Benitez.. I will gladly say I was wrong. Absolutely horrible coach.. The balls he has to keep playing that failure of a line up.

Flo has only himself to blame. Sure you can fire Carlo, but don't fire him only to replace him with an inferior coach with a mediocre CV, fresh off a failed experience with Napoli.

I have never seen the team this disinterested. This is post-Del Bosque era all over again.

I don't understand the signing of Benitez. The only reason I can think of Perez hiring him is that he's spanish & former Madrid player.

WHo is to blame for the fact that James + BBC cant play together? Benitez or Flo?

you guys just pouring your frustration at Benitez because he is easy to blame. He is not perfect, he has made mistakes, he made some players turn on him because he is odd at man management, but the true problems of this team do not end with Benitez. They were already present with Carlo before Di Maria became CM and after he left.

It's really tiring of reading people acting as if Carlo was the best thing ever. We played our best football under him 1) when Di Maria was around, 2) when Bale got injured and we lined up Isco-Kroos-Modric-James/CR-Benz.

Sacking Benitez and signing someone the players like will boost morale for sure, until our flaws are fatally exposed again against a tough team, i.e clasico losses with carlo, 4-0 vs atletico, 4-0 vs barca, losing to juve in cl semis etc...

Something drastic needs to happen for us to build a stronger team beyond the sacking of Benitez. we need to make a decision about benching James, at least until the end of the season when CR potential leaves and we DO NOT SIGN SOMEONE ELSE TO REPLACE HIM. That or Bale gets his usual injury. That means playing a lot more of Kovacic, as positionally he understands the role of interior better than Isco. Casemiro-Kroos-Modric is to be considered as well but Kroos struggles a bit when playing interior nowadays, or at least, (my theory) the way Benitez is coaching the change is not working because he plays there for Germany and does just fine.

ps: BBC + James can definitely play together, but not with Modric and Kroos behind them. another casting flaw. you need two box to box engines to support those guys, like Piggy-Javi when Bayern won the CL.

that james and bbc can't play together is due to poor planning than it is with coaching. when you have all 4 players for that price tag, its difficult for a coach to bench any of them. not because florentino will storm rafa's office and slap him with a sack letter, but because those players themselves have a lot of clout with the media and it ends up with a lot of negative energy hovering over the team

i don't like rafa, never did, i don't think florentino liked him neither. i think this was one of those moves where one of flo's advisers must have said to him "sign the guy, he's born in madrid, what's the worst that could happen"? but, one can't pin the bbc + james on rafa. we can blame him for tactical shape or lack thereof, lack of a consistent formation, the cheryshev thing (i don't excuse him, nor cheryshev, for that). but not this. any manager would have had this same problem, and i mentioned it when we signed james. its not just flo's fault neither, because a lot of fans were also begging florentino to make it happen, without assessing the impact it would have on the squad

rafa's not getting fired, at least not until the end of the season. firing him now is foolish. i know people are looking at chelsea and how they fired mourinho. chelsea were in relegation zone and mourinho had lost the locker room. rafa may not have the locker room with him, but the team's still managing. i'd rather we wait till summer for a more permanent move, instead of an intermediary, then if the intermediary succeeds we still fire him....i don't like such inconsistency. i'd rather we swim with the tide, and settle all our problems in the summer. covering the cracks now will help nothing especially if we are going to be unraveling the whole thing all over again in summer. if our position on the table was worse, then i may have had a different view. wait till summer before such big moves like firing and hiring

Benching one will create negative energy?

As if losing match after match and getting outplayed by rayo while bernabue are boooing game after game are any less negetive energy.

Benitez can play his gala line up and still will get sacked. He is an idiot if he thinks playing certain players will keep him his job.