Espanyol vs Real Madrid

because the same thing can be achieved by playing him in second half when the other team has tired legs.

HIguain starts from the bench right now to build his fitness

besides, dont compare Benzema to Suarez, that's an insult nowadays, Suarez is miles better

Or we can look at last season, where he had a similar start with no preseason scored 6 goals in 6 games.

he just rusty, looks in good shape, and simply needs quality minutes, its the same for any other elite players... they start when fit.

Of course rest or injury concerns or big games different story

Miles better at what? Last clasico says otherwise...

morata can be an impact sub, he scored late last week doesn't equate to an automatic start. if he comes off the bench and does well again, then he's slowly making a case for himself. but when fit, benzema's the better option and should start. besides, i think benzema is fit, he didn't play any euros the whole summer, and if he wasn't fit, i doubt zidane would start him. he's fit and should start and hopefully we bag all three points. these kind of away games get me a bit nervous

Ramos yellow-carded after 2 min, now that's quite unusual.

Good start by Ramos When he makes a mistake, he quickly follows with a bonehead attempt to recover the play.

holy shit Pepe with that poor clearance, we got lucky there

The Demon of Carthage wrote:Don't understand why Carvajal wasn't rested. Case and Modric should've been rested as well. Kova and Danilo should've started this one, and maybe Isco as well.

Also Benzema? Given the fact that he's unfit, he should've been brought in in the second half with Morata taking the starting spot.

Z should've rotated more here.

Can't rely on scrubs like Danilo when playing away on tough grounds. Espanyol is no joke and we can't risk losing points at this stage.

I can't understand why Zidane insists with asensio on the left, it's clear as day that he doesn't feel comfortable there

watching Marcelo's positioning gives me heartburn.

Shit Casemiro out

Feck it

Such mediocre level of play, unbelievable

Look pretty good to me.  We're absorbing pressure early and now moving the ball more and more.  Typical away game.

No Bale and Ronaldo with a half fit Benz was always going to make things difficult. Those are the 2 guys we build our attack around.

lol Ramos will be lucky if he gets away with that

Mr Nick09 wrote:Such mediocre level of play, unbelievable

We have the 2 best passers and ball retainers in the world and still can't keep the ball if their lives depended on it.

It's hard to watch, we look extremely poor. even without BBC complete, where is that juego de posicion Zidane keeps under his arm,terrible terrible stuff as we cant even play the ball out without hoofing

It's like our players haven't been instructed to do anything. He just picked out his starting eleven and told them "play".

Can we shift Asensio to the right he seems uncomfortable on the left

I disagree.  But unless it's possession football, some people consider it bad football.

We're playing Serie A football tactically, which is perfectly fine.  It's defensive though so it's not for everyone.  It's also not something you see in La Liga, so people aren't used to it. Atleti play like this as well.

agreed, would be nice if zidane swaps Lucas and Vasquez, but he is being clueless right now

No, it can be beautiful even if it's not positional. But this is just plain bad and painful to watch.

Atleti play much better than this lol, you are trying too hard not to criticize Zidane. We are mediocre right now

did you see atleti yesterday? runs off the ball, clear simple connection and passing. We look nothing like that

yeah right.  Watch atleti.  They defend hard and then try to quickly counter.  Most of their plays break down quickly... but they don't care.  They just need a few to go through to score.

We play the same way.  We're not trying to play perfectly clean.  We're looking for the one opening even if we fail the first 10 times.

Typically, you score more later in the game than early on because spaces open later on. Just keep running the same movements though until it does. That's why we score so much later. There's nothing desperate about how we go about things.

omg! dis is such a horrible match, I feek like crying...its irritating d way dey r playing. .we are pathetic. .

No shot on goal but hey we play Serie A defensive football...

sports, we suck, don't try to sugarcoat it or come up with excuses to justify this horror show.

Z better get his tactics right in the second half; we can't afford to lose or draw.

We're even more careful in this game because our scorers are injured... there's that too.  Marcelo and Carvajal are staying way back. You're not seeing our fullbacks attack at all basically. They're staying defensive in this game.

ZZ likely feels that we're less likely to recover if we allow a goal given our injuries.