Disaster: November 6, 2024 – Managing Madrid

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Four months of bad performances.

To be honest, I did see some improvements in early first half, for about 10 minutes. Mbappe was again as right forward, making the attack more symmetrical. Bellingham was not deeper than the right-back, he was more involved and played higher up the pitch. I saw some good pressing moments in which we managed to recover the ball. But we misplaced passes and and had a slow possession without purpose (this is why coaches do have to work on offense).

So we conceded. The defense continued to bad, with Tchouameni probably being the main responsible for the goals conceded in first half. Why didn’t he jump in the corner? Why he just stopped in the front of our box when Morata was going inside it (when he was the one got to the pass wrong and set their counter)?

We only got worse in the second half. Why Rüdiger attempted to press with a tackle so far away from our box without any cover? Milan could have scored the 3rd goal sooner. There was unchallenged head opportunity saved by Lunin. Milan’s third goal sequence is bizarre. Bad high press with those Militao bizarre attempts to recover the ball, basically leaving the defense line for nothing. The defense let Reijnders alone/unchallenged in the box. It seems the players are not thinking.

Offensively, there were many mistakes; the team looked clueless – as if they knew a remontada was not going to happen.

The pressing issue

In 21/22 season, first season in Carlo second spell as Real Madrid coach, MM talked a lot about Carlo conflicting tactical ideas. During first moments of the season, he attempted to make the team to press high. But from the game vs Shakhtar Donetsk in mid October, Carlo stopped with the high-pressing. The team sit in a low-block and won the game confortably, setting the stage for the low-block basically for the remaining of the season.

What is difficult to understand this season is the insistence in the high press, despite many feedbacks from different games that our press is not elite; it’s not good enough.

I’d say this insistence has been a non Ancelotti way to manage tactical things this season. Ancelotti of the past seasons would already have put the team in a low block, while justifying he has Mbappe, Vinicius, and Rodrygo and wants/needs to take advantage of their speed – his common justification of adapting to the characteristics of the players he has. Why this season is being different?

While Carlo fails to find solutions, he is also putting aside Arda and Endrick. Why they can’t play?

Why did Valverde start?

It’s difficult to understand Carlo reasoning. Camavinga was the best player vs Barcelona. Carlo choice was to start a play who had back problems during an entire week, instead of healthy Camavinga.

Emergency signing

I think the board must act in January. Very difficult to have this defense line beginning with Vazquez for more than half of the season. Vazquez have been torn apart defensively by different opponents. And given the lack of CBs, we can’t use a CB to rotate with him (and it’s not wise to use Tchouameni there anytime soon).

This hits another problem – it must be someone who, if he is still here, Ancelotti trusts, otherwise we’d make a signing to only make a company to Arda and Endrick on the bench.

It should be the end for Carlo?

Our current crisis is just getting bigger, but what are the solutions? We don’t know if Xabi Alonso, who is having his own issues at Leverkusen, would come mid-season. But can we wait until the end of the season? We are sitting at 17th place at UCL League table and our upcoming opponents looks more difficult than Milan. Can we accept to be out of UCL knockouts? We have a game in this weekend vs Osasuna and then it’s the international break. Is this break the right time to sack Carlo?