The top players we've sold recently

we had a better head to head than Barca last season but lost the league due to the other tough games thet managed to get wins while we could only draw and lose. We gad 2 points compared to Barca's 15 against the top 6/7 if i remember correctly. Thats just poor from us. Atleti had a worse h2h than Barca when they beat them to the title iirc. And in that season we were ahead till the last couple of weeks because of our wins in these games

The bugger games are only a small miniscule fraction of the whole season. All teams are due to drop points before and after those games. How many you drop compared to your rivals dictates the fate of the title chase

We lost both La Liga games to Atleti, lost 1 to Barca and won 1 against Barca....  that's 3 points taken and 9 given up.  And that Barcelona win was early in the season too.

Not to mention we won that Barca game on Benzema's back.

i have one question if benzema scores 30+ this season, you guys gonna ditch the "not really a goalscorer" tag? he is scoring tap-in,headers, fox in the box movement and lots of instinctive finishing, and even now he is not really a number 9,then what is he doing?

anyway only really real key player we sold was di maria, that it.

@Sport, yet we finished higher than Atleti and Barca finished higher than us proves my point in its entireity

@chad, to answer your question, i think it will depend on how those 30 come about, (i've never really gotten into the whole who is a poacher or who isn't argument, frankly, i don't care for it. i just want team trophies) and not just him but cristiano and bale as well. if they all score 50 goals each, and 99 percent  of those goals are coming against the malmos, getafes, rayos, las palmas, levantes of this world and nobody is giving me performances (not necessarily goals/assists, but big time plays and confident football), against reasonable sides, then i'm not interested.

the same reason, i haven't cared to comment on cristiano ronaldo becoming real madrid's top scorer....it was something revered when our leading scorer had won multiple ucl's and league titles with the club, and defined the era...even raul too a ucl every other year at his prime for 3 years and two semis, and scoring in big moments. its almost embarrassing to have a top goal scorer at the club, yet live in barcelona's shadow. i want performances from all 3, not just stats. in this era of football, we've all been turned into mathematicians and research analysts because of stats

bale scored 4 goals the other day, now has 8 goals from 11 league games, and put the ball on his christmas tree....like really? if we are beating barca, and playing with conviction against tough teams in tough situations, then by all means stat pad; but it can't be too merry, when the team is getting slaughtered by barca (no i haven't gotten over it), and guys are treasuring the ball against almighty rayo.....santa please give us a big game performance for xmas. rant over. thank you all.

halamadrid2 wrote:@Sport, yet we finished higher than Atleti and Barca finished higher than us proves my point in its entireity

You do realize our only three la liga losses in the 2nd half of last season were to Valencia, Barca and Atleti, right?  How can you defend this ffs.  It's beyond obvious.  It's the only reason Carlo got fired...  we couldn't beat our rivals when it counted and we lost the league as a result. It had nothing to do with beating the lesser teams which we demolished.

@tito benzema scored a brace at bilbao and a goal at atleti, for some reasons these games are being overlooked, he scores against barca regularly as well, i don't see what he is doing that makes him not as good, fans call bale a goalscorer yet benzema is easily a better finisher than him, yet he get denied great #9 rep every season, with same reasoning from 2009 , remember everyone was so sure he couldn't play counter attack footy? most fans are straight denying his improvement as a 9 for the sake of it that is a fact.

i'm not into the debate of whether he is a great 9 or not, i only responded to your question on how our stats this season may not necessarily exonerate our players, even if they're impressive.....my main issue is winning. hell, i'd rather cristiano, bale and benzema score 20 goals in the season (not each) but combined and we win the treble, than for benzema to get 40, cristiano 50, and bale 45, and we finish empty handed with eggs on our faces and a new pique joke.

and if after so many years we only finish wit a league, a ucl and 2 measly king cups, i'd rather we just scrap this whole project. i'm very uninterested in cristiano's world domination pursuit, benzema's improvement as a 9, bale's search for his premier league talents, james' next beautiful goal, isco's dribbles. i want titles and playing with conviction when it matters most. i also want a good manager in the summer...all due respect to rafa, i don't think he's a long term solution.

@sport, it wouldnt have mattered if we beat them in the 2nd half of the season when we could only muster 4 points from Villarreal, Valencia, Bilbao, Sevilla away while Barca took them all. Not to mention the fact we threw away 3 points against LaReal in the first half of the season. Barca might have beat us in the 2nd half of the season but whats the difference between that and us beating them in the first half. I dont think Carlo relies on the away Clasico and Atleti game when he sets a goal because those are the big games that could go either way. The others on the other hand should be won or at least not lost. Barca won most of them whereas we lost most of them and thats why they won the league. Not because they beat us in the 2nd Clasico or whatever. They went on a run in the 2nd half of the season and we continually tripped up when we had the chance to catch up to them. In the end Barca deserved the title despite having a worse h2h than us

@tito, i can see the rage in your eyes from behind my screen But i completely agree with everything you said, especially the part about everything becoming more stats based these days with people looking at numbers rather than performances. As you said trophies are what defines great players not individual numbers and some of our players are obsessed with numbers even our CB Ramos for crying out loud, everytime we are cruising against a team he runs faster than Bolt to the opposition box to try and score instead of perfecting his main job which is to defend.

Tito is right in that we have some specialist stat padders in our team, and the table i posted the other day about the teams Bale is scoring against, highlight this even more. He is a stat padder like you have never seen, and his stats look very good. He hasnt score against a "good" team since 2014, let alone performed, it's absurd.

The value of Barca's attack is the fact that when pit against top opposition, their attackers consistently make the difference. It used to be just Messi for a while, now Neymar does it, has become a specialist at scoring vs pathetico, Suarez performs big time in CL and against us, and Messi continues to do it vs everyone.

It did not help that our players got injured again this season and that we have been tactically lost since the start of the year. But they did not perform so far, or at least losing games when it matters.

I don't think you can criticize Benzema for not showing up in big games... the only notable exceptions were Atleti (because they crowded the middle and we never attacked the flanks since our "wingers" don't play wide) and the last Barca game where he had just gotten back from a 2 month injury.  He's been our best big game player.

Barca's strikers perform because their TEAM always dominate possession and they always get their fair share of service regardless of the opposition.  Our strikers fail when our midfield gets overrun and they are isolated with very little to no service.

Barca beats people via their midfield dominance and fantastic team shape primarily, not their strikers.  The fact that they have elite strikers just adds salt to the wound since they take their chances efficiently obviously.  At least when they had Pedro and players of the same ilk, you felt that they would squander plenty of opportunities (which they did).  Now, they don't do that anymore.

@sportsczy, i'm not singling out only benzema nor cris nor bale, its the whole team. the midfield often get overlooked as stat padders because obviously their position isn't based on stats, but even them, when it comes to solid sides the midfield become so damn dull. saw it last season against juve, atleti etc...the only person i kind of excuse is modric, cos at times he tries so hard its like he's not getting any help. i'm not even going to talk about the defense....when marcelo starts looking like the smartest one out of that back 4, you know we really need some divine intervention (i like varane, but he needs to be given an assured spot and consistent games).

I only miss Di Maria, Ozil and Higuain always failed in the big matches, specially Higuain who continues failing in these matches with Argentina and Napoli

Welcome to the forum, we have been in die need of new blood.

For me Di Maria is the biggest miss at Madrid because he covered a lot of structural weaknesses the team had. That 433 that Madrid played in the latter half of the season in 13/14 was very good.

Adit wrote:Welcome to the forum, we have been in die need of new blood.

thanks, I'll try to post frequently, sorry If I make mistakes writing my english It isn't good enough

I keep telling everyone for YEARS that you build a team with the midfield first if you plan on being successful in La Liga and Europe...  you don't need to in EPL but Madrid isn't playing in EPL.  

The most dominant teams i've seen in my life all had dominant midfields and had systems that focused on controlling the middle of the pitch.

Madrid keeps selling its best midfielders for whatever reason... it's insane.