Real Madrid vs Athletic Bilbao

That ref is Catalan, Mr. Obvious

to be fair to benzema, cristiano got a little selfish and carried away at the end. he should have tee'd him up with a pass late in the game, i think benzema was onside, but cristiano wanted a hattrick and saw his attempt saved. i know forwards should be a bit selfish, but that should have been a pass. i wasn't a fan of the defending at all

I like Kovacic but this game showed that he is still very raw. Very undisciplined performance by him. It will come to him soon with time just needs to continue learning. Varane has been poor all season with all aspects of his game, the passing, the positioning, the inability to win the ball once somebody is running at him everything has been average. He needs to calm down when he is under pressure, too many times he makes the wrong descicion when under pressure and he ends up giving the ball back straight to the opposition.

Lucas and Nacho are excellent rotation player. I dont understand why they dont play more. Its not like we lose quality if they play. In fact Lucas made an assist the moment he came on and Nacho could have had this if Benzema didnt aim for the corner flag on his cross. I have never seen Danilo play like that in my life and James for all his hustling and bustling is very average, he is poor in tight spaces, does not defend enough and has a poor first touch. Like apart from his shots i dont see an incentive in playing him.

Navas was excellent and always on his toes. Needs to communicate better with his teammates though, the were times when Ramos headed the ball out of play when there was noone behind him or Varane clearing the ball with noone there. Alot of the goals we concede can be avoided if he just spoke up. Still, he is a fabulous keeper

Isco disco showing our players how to get out of pressure by dribbling through 5/6 players who have circled him. The others could learn alot from that

Kroos and Modric were great all game. If one of the goes down we are screwed

Navas' issue is that he's too reckless with how he leaves his line... he's out of position a lot so the CBs don't know where he is. He doesn't read his CBs. Very good keeper but not a top one.

Just watch how Neuer, Lloris, De Gea, etc. read the game and how they interact with their CBs... it's night and day.

Navas tries to be too spectacular instead of just being solid.

halamadrid2 wrote:What a shitty display by both teams. Thought i was watching a PL game for a moment. Pepe needs to get back asap. The defence needs him

Pepe has been shit all season. Him and Danilo have been our worst defenders

Lol Varane made a huge mistake. Why blame Navas here. Varane played a ball with out looking at the keeper from close range.

And other than a couple of games, i think Varane has been very good all season... extremely good. This was a poor one but it was an aberration.

Both Pepe and Varane (and Ramos) have had problems all season... not because they don't play well... but because they're on their heels to help Danilo and they have nobody to rely on defensively in front of them. They're guys who like to step up and defend. 99% of the time, they're forced to run back towards their goal and defend in the box.

It's getting better though. Since we're playing a higher line, at least they don't end up defending in the box as often when they're running back. You can't really be aggressive if you're mostly defending in the box.

Adit wrote:Lol Varane made a huge mistake. Why blame Navas here. Varane played a ball with out looking at the keeper from close range.

Did i mention Varane? No. that was a big mistake. But all season i see Navas rushing out for no reason when he has CB cover. Did it a couple of times again tonight. You get the spectacular save when it works. But who cares... it's not the right play more often than not. Trust your CBs to make the play if they're in position.

"He is out of position alot so CBs don't know where he is"

I don't know what you meant by this other than today's game. CBs will see where their GK is when running back. If you are implying Navas is out of position when the CBs have their back to our own goal then I don't remember such situations.

No... that's not how it works.   CBs look at the attackers and the ball unless they're wide open and have time to look for the keeper.  When the CBs are focused on the play and the opponent, the keeper is supposed to yell out if he's going to rush out or play out of position and he better be louder than the crowd.  As a CB, you NEVER look for the keeper if you're under pressure.  In fact, you get that gets trained out of you ad nauseum so you don't have that reflex.  You practice where the keeper is supposed to be in training and you expect him there. If a CB wants the keeper to play our of position and come get the ball, you signal him to come get the ball.

So in essence, either the keeper has to call out that he's going to rush out or the CB asks the keeper to come out. You have to communicate unless it's a dire situation where you're just doing whatever you can. I see Navas making rushes with no communication (you can tell by the CBs' reaction) when there's absolutely no need.

sportsczy wrote:Navas' issue is that he's too reckless with how he leaves his line... he's out of position a lot so the CBs don't know where he is. He doesn't read his CBs. Very good keeper but not a top one.

Just watch how Neuer, Lloris, De Gea, etc. read the game and how they interact with their CBs... it's night and day.

Navas tries to be too spectacular instead of just being solid.

Not to worry. Naval defonitely being replaced by de Gea next season

Was a mistake from both Varane and Navas. Bad pass from Varane. If he the GK doesn't communicate well enough you have to get it away. Navas was standing in a retarded position, no reason to stand there.

Adit wrote:"He is out of position alot so CBs don't know where he is"

I don't know what you meant by this other than today's game. CBs will see where their GK is when running back. If you are implying Navas is out of position when the CBs have their back to our own goal then I don't remember such situations.

No... they don't. They're looking at the opposition and the ball. They assume where the keeper is because that's how you train. The keeper has to yell at the CB to tell him if he's coming for the ball.

That was a horrible mistake by Varane.... I'm not talking about that play at all. I'm talking all season. Navas is really bad at communicating and is reckless with his plays a lot of times. He's so athletic that he gets it done regardless. But you can clearly see that all our CBs don't quite know what Navas is going to do and it makes them hesitant when they shouldn't be.

FennecFox7 wrote:

futbol_bill wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Navas' issue is that he's too reckless with how he leaves his line... he's out of position a lot so the CBs don't know where he is. He doesn't read his CBs. Very good keeper but not a top one.

Just watch how Neuer, Lloris, De Gea, etc. read the game and how they interact with their CBs... it's night and day.

Navas tries to be too spectacular instead of just being solid.

Not to worry. Naval defonitely being replaced by de Gea next season

Not to worry.. your bias is clearly showing and completely forgetting all the times navas has singlehandedly saved us.. but...

rr

No bias at all. I'm just stating the fact (and obvious). It well known around here that management have concluded that while Navas is good, he is not elite and thus the decision has been made to finally succeed in getting De Gea.

De Gea is the last thing we need at the moment

Get used to it. it is happening!!!!

i don't think futbol_bill is being biased. i've been hearing the same rumors (not necessarily from spanish channels like AS and marca), but from spanish correspondents at skysports and espn. the directors or florentino perez seem comfortable with spending cash for de gea as part of the players they want next summer. what i find foolish is, if we made the move earlier last year, we could have gotten him on the cheap. now van gaal practically blackmailed him into an extension, and the club seems fine with paying all that money for a goalie....and we'll still spend on signing outfield players as well

Couldn't watch the game live, something came up, so I had to tape it and watch it later at night. That's why I didn't share my thoughts earlier.

Anyway, here's what I think:

I'm starting to feel a little bit worried now because there's something deeply flawed with our attacking game and, apparently, Z still hasn't fixed it. There's always a big space, filled with the opponent's players separating our isolated attackers from our midfielders, and as a result, we always end up passing the ball to our wingers or fullbacks, which makes our game pretty predictable. We don't try to pierce the defense vertically or lob the ball over the opponent's head to our strikers.

Our second goal was, just like Modric's last week, down to individual brilliance, not team play. As for the third, it was a mistake from their defense. We still have problems with our build-up play. We always struggle in the final third because the strikers aren't helping the midfielders and aren't moving in ways to open lanes.

We played some good football at times, but that was only because Bilbao stopped pressing.

As for the team, here are my notes:

1. Ronaldo: selfish, absolutely disgusting. His first goal was tremendous. In the dying minutes of the game, Benzema was open but he chose to go for a hattrick instead of passing it to him. And that's far from being the only selfish moment of his game. He's not a team player. Also, his defensive game was pathetic, didn't track back or press at all. And he's become very slow lately.

2. Benzema: Had a good game overall, and dropped back at times to help the midfield, but then quickly shifted back to his usual lazy self.

3. James: aside from that goal he didn't do anything worthy of mentioning. His defensive game was below average and his attacking game was limited. He didn't build an understanding with Danilo, instead he kept doing the exact same thing over, over and over again: the second he gets the balls, he passes it horizontally to the closest player on his left or make a long pass to the LB (Carvajal).

4. Kroos: had an amazing game.

5. Modric: had a good game, not as good as Kroos', I thought, but still good.

6. Kovacic: I thought he lacked discipline, but he still had a good game. With regular playing time, he could become a great.

7. Danilo: I thought he wasn't so bad yesterday. I hope he keeps on improving.

8. Carvajal: he didn't impress yesterday, but to be fair to him, he was being played out of position. When he switched back, he improved a little bit.

9. Varane: Not his best game. One terrible mistake and an undeserved yellow(s). Still, better than Pepe.

10. Ramos: wasn't his best game, average overall.

11. Navas: had a great game. He had one bad call, but it didn't impact the game.

12. Lucas: The second he was introduced, coupled with Carvajal switching back to his RB position, made the right flank much, much more solid. His work rate is way superior to James'. If Varane wasn't sent off, I think that right flank would've been impenetrable.

13. Nacho: What I like about him is that he's very composed and calm and he's a good crosser. Shame he had to switch to CB when Varane was sent off and I couldn't see more of his fullback skills. Still, I think he should start at LB against Roma with Carvajal at RB.

14. Isco: he was decent overall.

15. Z:very questionable starting lineup. We were lucky nobody fell injured, otherwise we would've been toast. Also, Carvajal at LB and Danilo at RB, what was he thinking? He didn't rotate well and didn't rest our key players.

Glad for the three points. But there are still many flaws hampering us and neither Z nor the players seem willing to fix them. Next step, Rome. We'll go there with many, many question marks in my mind. Let's hope for the best.

You guys hate or love benzema ? Hasn't benzema been a better player than kicknaldo this season ?

Well said DoC. Echoing my thoughts exactly on every single player. The problem with this front 3 is the same as when James played CM. They all stand at the top waiting for a pass and it opens up a big gap between the midfield and attack. Nobody dropping deep to help out our midfield. Bale was excellent in dropping deep under Zidane. It was amazing to see. James not doing it enough and we resort to long balls.

Against Roma i want to see an extra CM and one less attacker. They have had 2/3 games to show that they can coexist and havent shown any positivity at all. In fact after our amazing start to life under Zidanw we have sort of reverted back to Rafa lite but with more fight. Rather worrying seeing as we are relying on an injury hampered player to sort out our dysfunctional front 3

FennecFox7 wrote:

sree999 wrote:You guys hate or love benzema ? Hasn't benzema been a better player than kicknaldo this season ?

No need to insult our players. If you're a barca fan you can kindly keep worshipping burger kingessi.

All he ever does is talk crap about Ronaldo or jump at the first excuse to write "mehdrid" in a comment. I'm surprised his warning level is almost full.