....still has faith with Madrid?
We aren't as bad as people makes it out to be.
Let me refresh everybody's mind:
La Liga: Played 12: Won 7. Drawn 1. Lost 4.
Europe: Deserved to beat Leverkusen last night, but at least our destiny is in our own hands as a win against hopeless-Roma guarantees passage to the knock-out phase.
People act like we are out of the CL and trail Barcelona by 20 points, it isn't like that at all.
The attitude at the start of the season was poor, but we have generally played well since beating Valencia 1-0 late October. The performance at the Nou Camp was disappointing, but we've only won once in Barcelona for the last 21 years. What did you expect? I understand we should have put up a much harder fight, but sometimes there isn't a lot you can do about tradition either.
I am confident Woodgate will finally make his debut against Zaragoza in January, and provided he doesn't get injured again he will certainly make us far more stable at the back. I watch a lot of US sports and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation has healed a lot of athletes with similar muscular problems. If his latest comeback attempt fails- sell him. It's as simple as that.
Robinho will also arrive in January according to all the sources, and from what I've seen of him at Santos he is one hell of a player. Are we finally going to have the balls to drop Beckham and rotate between Solari and Robinho on the left?
Barcelona look great right now, but I doubt their squad can keep that kind of consistency (both physically and mentally) right until the end of the season. They are also suffering a lot with injuries. Larsson has now become the fourth player they have lost for more than 20 weeks. I am not knocking them, I do believe they have been the best team in Europe so far this season- but will they have enough left in the tank when the going gets tough in March/April...including that trip to the Bernabeu?
As for our own problems: We are not rotating as much as I would like. Why do Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham and Raul have to play every game? One of the reasons we collapsed last season the way we did is because we had no squad to rotate. And now that we do have the squad, we aren't rotating anyway! The whole thing is incredible. I would like to see Owen, Solari and Morientes start against Levante this weekend, with Ronaldo, Raul and Beckham all taking to the bench. Morientes and Solari are two of the best players at Real Madrid, and they get less minutes than everybody else. We complain about dropping points whenever we do, but the truth is that if we were a little smarter with selecting our first team (i.e dropping players like Beckham and Raul when they are off-form and playing Solari and Morientes) then we would be at least level with Barcelona at the top of the league right now. The one thing that is killing us more than anything else is that Ramon doesn't have the balls to drop anybody who is performing below-par because of Perez. Or Adidas.
Anyways, when push comes to shove from February-May, I still expect Madrid to come out on top in the league because we have more talent. Sure, Barcelona's 7-point cushion at the moment is sweet, but don't forget we had an 8-point cushion in March, let alone November - and still blew it.
Our forthcoming fixtures before the Winter break:
vs Levante.
@ Villareal.
vs Real Sociedad.
@ Racing.
vs Sevilla.
Against Sevilla right before Christmas it will be a very tricky game but at least it is at the Bernabeu so I expect 15 points to close out the first part of the season.
With Robinho (likely) and Woodgate (less likely) to feature for Madrid in the second half of the season, who knows what could happen?
We aren't as bad as people makes it out to be.
Let me refresh everybody's mind:
La Liga: Played 12: Won 7. Drawn 1. Lost 4.
Europe: Deserved to beat Leverkusen last night, but at least our destiny is in our own hands as a win against hopeless-Roma guarantees passage to the knock-out phase.
People act like we are out of the CL and trail Barcelona by 20 points, it isn't like that at all.
The attitude at the start of the season was poor, but we have generally played well since beating Valencia 1-0 late October. The performance at the Nou Camp was disappointing, but we've only won once in Barcelona for the last 21 years. What did you expect? I understand we should have put up a much harder fight, but sometimes there isn't a lot you can do about tradition either.
I am confident Woodgate will finally make his debut against Zaragoza in January, and provided he doesn't get injured again he will certainly make us far more stable at the back. I watch a lot of US sports and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation has healed a lot of athletes with similar muscular problems. If his latest comeback attempt fails- sell him. It's as simple as that.
Robinho will also arrive in January according to all the sources, and from what I've seen of him at Santos he is one hell of a player. Are we finally going to have the balls to drop Beckham and rotate between Solari and Robinho on the left?
Barcelona look great right now, but I doubt their squad can keep that kind of consistency (both physically and mentally) right until the end of the season. They are also suffering a lot with injuries. Larsson has now become the fourth player they have lost for more than 20 weeks. I am not knocking them, I do believe they have been the best team in Europe so far this season- but will they have enough left in the tank when the going gets tough in March/April...including that trip to the Bernabeu?
As for our own problems: We are not rotating as much as I would like. Why do Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham and Raul have to play every game? One of the reasons we collapsed last season the way we did is because we had no squad to rotate. And now that we do have the squad, we aren't rotating anyway! The whole thing is incredible. I would like to see Owen, Solari and Morientes start against Levante this weekend, with Ronaldo, Raul and Beckham all taking to the bench. Morientes and Solari are two of the best players at Real Madrid, and they get less minutes than everybody else. We complain about dropping points whenever we do, but the truth is that if we were a little smarter with selecting our first team (i.e dropping players like Beckham and Raul when they are off-form and playing Solari and Morientes) then we would be at least level with Barcelona at the top of the league right now. The one thing that is killing us more than anything else is that Ramon doesn't have the balls to drop anybody who is performing below-par because of Perez. Or Adidas.
Anyways, when push comes to shove from February-May, I still expect Madrid to come out on top in the league because we have more talent. Sure, Barcelona's 7-point cushion at the moment is sweet, but don't forget we had an 8-point cushion in March, let alone November - and still blew it.
Our forthcoming fixtures before the Winter break:
vs Levante.
@ Villareal.
vs Real Sociedad.
@ Racing.
vs Sevilla.
Against Sevilla right before Christmas it will be a very tricky game but at least it is at the Bernabeu so I expect 15 points to close out the first part of the season.
With Robinho (likely) and Woodgate (less likely) to feature for Madrid in the second half of the season, who knows what could happen?
