Espanyol vs Real Madrid

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.

no iota of aesthetic pleasure from watching this match and please no one should come with that bullshit talk about ronaldo and bales absence.......I think the best thing to do is just to check the final scores since its just all about winning now .......

Holy shit

James: goal from individual brilliance.

Z needs to kiss his forehead at halftime; he bailed him out.

We suck with a perfect record

Madrid fans

we suck this game, and if you think otherwise, you're insanely biased.

We're playing away without Ronaldo and Bale.  Benzema is half fit. We started with Kroos on the bench and then Casemiro got injured.

It's called managing a game away from home

Just reading the comments, you would think that we were some stable club that had a clear identity of how we want to play instead of a club desperate for success on the domestic and international stage because our rivals were leaving us in the dust on both fronts so we got desperate and ran for instant success.......................

The way we are playing doesn't surprise me really. These same players have had how different managers for periods of time trying to get them to different things, it's no surprise they look disjointed and all over the place, it will take a lot of time to kill the habits these guys have developed with these different managers.

We won CL 2 out of the last 3 years.  We're desperate for nothing.

What we are desperate for is a domestic title. To achieve that, we need to maximize points... forget style. So we're setting up to maximize points.

the bias not to criticize Zidane even when the team is playing like shit is hitting a all time high

we are leading because Perez spent 80 millions to sign a world class midfielder, but because we played superior organized football and leverage an advantage through rigorous team work. If you cant see that there is a problem here, i dont know

We're playing freaking Espanyol; not Sacchi's Milan. Don't try to justify this garbage-fest; there's absolutely no excuse to play like this.

James forcing his way back up the pecking order like a boss, damn I know my shit.

Half time 1-0

Disciplined performance. Had to be separated by piece of individual quality. Backline is too shaky on routine clearances, they are trying to be too cute and end up mishitting it or misjudging the bounce or height of it. Kroos has been absolutely spending since he came on

Asensio, Benz and Lucas not doing enough for me in terms of taking on defenders and giving them something to think about

We are playing away with Modric, Kroos, Benzema, James, Vasquez against a garbage espanyol team and Zidane having to "manage" the game is exactly what's wrong lol

Zidane have our players playing all over the pitch. Every single one of them. What is this?
James has been poor despite the goal and he takes too much touches to control the ball, effectively killing the danger.

I hate it when Pepe makes a mistake and then throw his hands wide as if it was someone else's mistake. Luckily Kiko was there to save.

when the best passers in the world cant string passes together...when ur build up is slower than the Internet of the 90s

sportsczy wrote:We won CL 2 out of the last 3 years.  We're desperate for nothing.

What we are desperate for is a domestic title. To achieve that, we need to maximize points... forget style. So we're setting up to maximize points.

I'm not talking about the last 3 years, I'm talking since Perez came back and signed these core of players.

We were desperate for success as our rivals had left us behind. We sacrificed trying to build a foundation for a quick fix.

That's fine, I don't expect to see a clear identity from this team for a while.

You guys watch Juve play? They scored 75 goals in 38 games in Serie A last season. That's not even 2 goals per game. But they only conceded 20.

That's how we play. We could care less about scoring 3+ goals a game. We'll take the 1-2 goal wins every time while playing solid defense and take the La Liga title.

Whether you like it or not, that's how it's going to be all season long.

Come on Sports, it was not a good first half by us. I get the whole managing what we have but we do have good players and these gave are not performing well at all today.

As for half fit Benny, his ass shouldn't have started. We're playing an Espanyol side coached by Quique Flores, a rather competent La Liga coach.

It's like total chaos on the pitch.

Hey look overreacting, when the team wins they always believed just like last season, learn to have some faith for a change

sportsczy wrote:You guys watch Juve play? They scored 75 goals in 38 games in Serie A last season. That's not even 2 goals per game. But they only conceded 20.

That's how we play. We could care less about scoring 3+ goals a game. We'll take the 1-2 goal wins every time while playing solid defense and take the La Liga title.

Whether you like it or not, that's how it's going to be all season long.

Oh i did not know Zidane had become a defensive coach, you sold him as someone who had studied under Bielsa and Pep would play champagne football.

That being said, Juventus play the ball out of the back much better then us, and that's even when they supposedly such a defensive team

How many clear chances did Espanyol have Doc? 1 on Pepe's mistake. That's it.

If you don't concede, you have a lot better chance of taking points away from a game.

Doc wrote:Come on Sports, it was not a good first half by us. I get the whole managing what we have but we do have good players and these gave are not performing well at all today.

As for half fit Benny, his ass shouldn't have started. We're playing an Espanyol side coached by Quique Flores, a rather competent La Liga coach.

No Benzema is an elite forward, he needs to start to build fitness, you should know this.

He scored 6 on 6 last season without preseason, he is the best striker in the world, the french Suarez

respect his name please

@Nick... ZZ tried.  His first 6 weeks on the job, we played a high line and attacked like crazy.  We dropped points like crazy too.  Everyone was talking about his replacement at that time.

So he became pragmatic.

Nobody cares if you lose beautifully... they want you to win.  It's better to win beautifully.  But you better win first.

I couldn't disagree more. If we played like Pep's Bayern it would be another story, but we didn't play that beautifully.