Wolfsburg vs Real Madrid

my take....terrible, terrible defense (as usual).
marcelo, pepe, ramos, danilo were extremely poor. i could see it before the goal, they pushed up so far up even when we were with the ball, to the point that any misplaced pass we made was a goal threat

even the commentator lamented on how high up the pitch danilo was, not to mention, the kid barely attempted a tackle, backed off on almost every draxler attack. midfield, stagnant as usual. i got so nervous at the beginning, i kept saying to myself "u wonna beat madrid, just let us have the ball, we'll have no ideas". we are a one touch and move side, quick counters. no plan b

attack- no poise, no calm. rush, rush, rush. i noticed there were so many attempts by players attempting shots with their weaker foot, cos they had no poise or style to shift position and shoot. kroos had two left footed attempts, one of them was close, but in both situations, i felt it would have made sense to put the ball on the stronger leg than rush the shot. bale and cristiano also had attempts on their weaker foot. its like we got so scared of confrontation we wanted to rush a shot

i don't get how zidane let danilo play 90 minutes, hell, i'm not sure how he got ahead of carvajal who put in a good shift. i didn't have any faith in our bench, the way the game went, at like 58 mins i just said to myself, "this team is not going to score"

How did we lose to these scrubs? Wtf?

He has no choice to rush Benz back and have him start every game and, thus, he gets injured. Thigh problems are something you need time to recover from. Since we have no back up CF, it's a broken record.

Carvajal has had the same issue. But Danilo had been playing well recently. So he logically went with Danilo to protect Carvajal.

We should have handled Wolfsburg. If this was another elite team, i don't doubt that Carvajal would have been put in there. I also feel that with one sub gone due to Benz injury and the likelihood of needing to sub out Kroos later... Zizou was forced to keep his last sub in his pocket in case of another injury or a red card. When you get first half injuries, your subbing gets handcuffed.

oh thanks for reminding me about that foolish stunt by marcelo. i hate play acting, especially when u've been pathetic all day. who remember his lousy shot that nearly caused a goal on the counter. and some folks dared compare him to carlos. these hot and cold performances are doing little to help the careers of players at this club. i have no problem when we lose games, but these days, when the team loses , they look so lethargic its unbelievable

sportsczy wrote:He has no choice to rush Benz back and have him start every game and, thus, he gets injured.  Thigh problems are something you need time to recover from.  Since we have no back up CF, it's a broken record.

Carvajal has had the same issue.  But Danilo had been playing well recently.  So he logically went with Danilo to protect Carvajal.

We should have handled Wolfsburg.  If this was another elite team, i don't doubt that Carvajal would have been put in there.  I also feel that with one sub gone due to Benz injury and the likelihood of needing to sub out Kroos later...  Zizou was forced to keep his last sub in his pocket in case of another injury or a red card.  When you get first half injuries, your subbing gets handcuffed.

You and I think similar.

I really don't like our odds in the return leg. Wolfsburg can just ptb and we have our work cut out for us.

The hot and cold performances of Crisitiano and Bale are not helping either. Zidane needs to throw mayoral into the fire.  Its a big risk but we need to protect benzema too. We do have a backup cf but we just arent using him.

@tito you also missed the kick at the wolfsburg player right before the playacting. For the man who is vice captain, i was ashamed and embarrassed by marcelo's actions. This is not okay.

When people say Danilo had been playing well does anyone take into account that his only games where he's looked somewhat decent is when he was played as a LB?

As a RB, he's been consistently shit all season.

you know, i don't understand that. him and arbeloa, they get ripped at rb then look okay (not good, not great) at left back. obviously i'm sure if we look deeper into the teams faced when they've played in such positions, and right wingers faced, it may shed more light on the situation at hand. here i was thinking bale might be better down the left, dude was so damn predictable. to our stat guys, have we scored off a set piece when we need them most - not just direct free kicks, but corners, crossed free kicks (no this is not time to bring up ramos' header, i'm talking about this season)

#saveusCR

Having games away where you don't score happen... Conceding 2 goals shouldn't happen. That's my main concern. Sometimes you have to grind it out and our defense is incapable of doing it, Casemiro or no Casemiro.

Looks like you guys are out... to Wolfsburg

sportsczy wrote:Having games away where you don't score happen...  Conceding 2 goals shouldn't happen.  That's my main concern.  Sometimes you have to grind it out and our defense is incapable of doing it, Casemiro or no Casemiro.

I have been telling you guys all season, the defensive issues are much bigger than a one player fix, that why i said blaming kroos everything is stupid, too many of our defenders focus way too much on attack, and show little concern for defense, cause they know they wont get benched like ramos and marcelo.

The most solid marcelo looked was when coentrao was breathing down his neck, now he gets praised for dribbling and walking back on defense, then fans calls dunga stupid for dropping him cause dribbling>doing your job .

I can't believe people criticized rafa for criticizing ramos publicly, he is shit and it needs to be said to his face, if he wasn't spanish he would have been ran out of the club years ago he has never ever been good enough, yet wears that stupid smile like he is best or something, rep>doing your job .

I only watched the last 10 minutes of the game, so the players may have been tired at that point. They all looked about as disinterested as they did under Rafa, though. I thought Pepe was supposed to be our last remaining player who works hard and puts his all into his performances, but he was jogging around like everyone else. Our midfield looked so uninspired that even Khedira with his work rate, would've been a sight for sore eyes.

sportsczy wrote:Having games away where you don't score happen... Conceding 2 goals shouldn't happen. That's my main concern. Sometimes you have to grind it out and our defense is incapable of doing it, Casemiro or no Casemiro.

And some peeps here thought having a dm would fix things... TOP KEK!

Been saying for some time now we don't need a dm. And wolfsburg just showed why it wouldn't matter even if we had one out there. Defense isn't a one man job. It's the responsibility of the team. Did no one learn the lesson with khedira?

And adding to our troubles, it seems the quality of the backline is sorely lacking. We give Ramos a payrise and this is how he thanks us? Perhaps not selling him to manutd was a mistake. No way we getting 60m euros for him now. Too old and if peeps are smart, realize he is all brawn and no brain. He will decline sharply very soon if not already.

Ofc a lot of this can be migitated if we had real team effort but we are lacking there as well. Failure of midfield and forwards. Everyone is to blame.

Why am I so hard on Ramos? Because he wears the armband. Since taking over from iker, he has been an utter disappointment and has brought shame to the captaincy time and time again. The fact we looked more steady against barca AFTER he was sent off is very damning. Expect much more from one who wears the armband. Does being a captain mean nothing these days?

not just tackling, position is also a huge problem for them. you saw moments when pepe would slip on the grass and fall during the game. and that's usual in games like these for us. we hold possession, and the defenders feel for whatever reason they can contribute by being so far up in the center of the pitch. a small mistake or a loose ball, and then they panic and start slipping on the grass like kids. hold your position, its not that difficult....reminds me of when we played football as kids, and you'd notice a defender on your team high up the pitch with you, when you'd tell them to go back, they'd get upset

Varane has a calf strain unfortunately. Those are tough and tend to be lengthy in terms of recovery.

Ffs

You could almost see Carvajal trying to lean out of the camera angle in disgust

As for James, well, I hope he'll never play for Real Madrid again.

And btw, the guy laughing with him is the team's physical trainer. That speaks volumes about his professionalism.

Was that really the best time to share a joke?

Look at Carvajal's face ffs. Just get out of this team colombian pos

People handle stress differently... some guys need to joke around because they play better if they're loose. Others need to play with an intense edge and, thus, look for things to get intense about. Best example is Zidane who was as cool as a cucumber mostly (unless he went volcanic and then everything went to hell lol)... you couldn't tell if his team was winning or losing. He played the same exact way regardless of circumstances. It helped him in big games because most players tend to get too wound up and end up psyching themselves out while he just played his normal game... which became more effective since the opposition wasn't playing its normal game most times.

I never read much into demeanor. It's all about performance to me.