Real Madrid (A) | CL | Post Match Thread

Think it’s 140 corners in the league, no goals. Whoever the fuck our set piece coach is, is pulling wool over Pep’s eyes. I hope they don’t spend time on set pieces because I’d say they do fuck all.
The set pieces were diabolical last night. It is baffling and a huge weak link.
 
Only one thing worse than our starting formation was Pep waiting till half time to change it - by which time we were out of the competition.

All from the fear of upsetting a player or admitting that he had dropped an absolute bollock starting with that line up.

Would love to know what the players and other coaching staff thought about it all - absolute car crash.
 
After that performance the office is a real joy this morning ha
I’ve had an Irish Liverpool fan and 3 rag fans on the wind up so far today.

It’s as if Liverpool didn’t lose to galatasaray the night before and as for the rags, I just kindly asked them how they went on last night
 
Don’t get how Pep after all he has done for us over these last 10 years has moments where he comes across as so bloody naive.
He has completely shot himself in the foot. We should have been compact at the very least, not recklessly expansive.
Pep seems to have been over emotional in recent months. He has always been animated but with a cold ruthless streak. Last night and the swamp Derby were totally strange tactical games. It never ends well when we under estimate the opposition with a gung-ho line-up.
 
Was laughed at on this forum when i said Dias/Guehi are the same player and would be an awful pairing.
 
We were never good enough to win the CL this season. in the same way that we’re not ready for the league at the moment. At the highest level, our ‘mend and make do’ approach to certain positions is exposed. We should take the positives - the domestic cups are currently the extent of our capabilities. We should concentrate on those - going out of the CL and settling for a top 4 spot in the league means we don’t have to rest players if we get to the FA Cup semi final.
 
When you start with three wingers and have to sub two of them because you’re three nil down at half time it’s probably fair to say that, in hindsight, you’ve picked the wrong team. I won’t say “we’ve been found out” but there’s definitely a default method of playing against us which offers the best chance of success and teams from Forest to Madrid are using it. They don’t work harder than us necessarily but they work far more efficiently. They drop deep, our midfield and back four push high up the pitch and immediately we’re exposed to the counter attack. It appeared last night that Pep thought there was an opportunity to almost put the tie to bed , unfortunately there was, just not the way we hoped for.
 
We were never good enough to win the CL this season. in the same way that we’re not ready for the league at the moment. At the highest level, our ‘mend and make do’ approach to certain positions is exposed. We should take the positives - the domestic cups are currently the extent of our capabilities. We should concentrate on those - going out of the CL and settling for a top 4 spot in the league means we don’t have to rest players if we get to the FA Cup semi final.
This is realistic and surely what most of us think. Winning the League Cup would be huge.We are still in transition and well behind Barca, PSG, Bayern and peak Real Madrid. I think Arsenal will be the worst Champions for decades but that’s just tough shit. They have a solid defence and we don’t.
 
It was a really tough watch last night and one that completely caught me off guard following what i thought was a brilliant display at Newcastle.

So many things to pick out of it that were wrong, but the biggest worry for me and huge elephant in the room that were not really allowed to discuss is Haaland. He is a complete passenger in pretty much every game. He drops deep every now and then and maybe holds up a long ball and we find ways to paper over the glaring huge cracks in his game at the moment. We don't really create for him anything of note yet again, his movement when Doku did get into good positions last night was like they've literally never met before. He looks disinterested most of the time and since he's stopped scoring at the end of 2025 its like having 10 men on the pitch.

Not sure on the obvious answers, but unless we solve it, it's hard to really see us winning anything this season which is mental considering the position we are in with two months of the season to go.
 
Can't remember which player recently said it. But he said "when City have the ball, we rest".

And he's right. All they do is get set 25 yards from their own goal. Wait for our inevitable shit pass, then counter in numbers quickly.

We are the easiest team to set up against nowadays.
Other teams have adapted, we have not. Last night we started well, Doku was putting in dangerous crosses and then they doubled up on him and that was it. Comfortable evening. Did anyone have the room to shoot from outside the box, did we have any breakaways? We are so intent on ball retention that we do not take any risks and that is very, very predictable. Pep needs to innovate and react in game much quicker.
 
2023 Manchester City would also have thrashed this 2026 Manchester City 4-0. Because by that point they were a team that had gelled, with seasons of campaigns behind them.

We have a team where for a lot of players it's their first season with us (some, not even 4 months) and others their first season in the Premier League. A league in which clubs have adapted their tactics to avoid being beaten by us.

WE have become the standard teams set their stalls out to beat, yet surprisingly the one team that didn't adapt, was us ourselves. The nucleus is there, but it's going to take some time and some fans need to stop expecting so much so early.

Semenyo and Haaland doesn't work. Semenyo and Marmoush, does. Gonzalez is a far better prospect than Reijnders, Guehi will be a beast of a defender once he has a few seasons with us under his belt. Last night was not the night. It was a test to see how much work is still needed to be done. Quite a lot, as it turns out.
 
2023 Manchester City would also have thrashed this 2026 Manchester City 4-0.

We have a team where for a lot of players it's their first season with us (some, not even 4 months) and others their first season in the Premier League. A league in which clubs have adapted their tactics to avoid being beaten by us.

WE have become the standard teams set their stalls out to beat, yet surprisingly the one team that didn't adapt, was us ourselves. The nucleus is there, but it's going to take some time and some fans need to stop expecting so much so early.
Nah .We've added loads to an already talented squad. Whatever this bunch of players go on to achieve it won't be under Guardiola.
Need to get rid of a few as well.
Dias, Saviniho and reijinders for a start.
 

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