Matchday 5: Sevilla vs Real Madrid [2019-20]

Anybody get the feeling that we played scared? Haven’t seen Navas have such a bad game since his return. Gonna have to credit Zidane; mentally prepared his team. It was business-like.

Let say in this way, I would rather have Muriel up front than De Jong.

Real Madrid deserved the win! We just didn’t offer enough up front! I’m afraid de jong just doesn’t offer enough as an attack threat. He’s to slow and not on same wavelength of other attacking players.

De jong is effective at holding the ball up or defending corners. However, to win us matches like this he’s not the answer. Lopetegui needs to fix this!

Positive was Ocampos and Torres. We were decent at back as well. Nothing we could do about the goal. Was good quality by Madrid! It’s a shame but I’d have still settled for 10 points from 15. On to Eibar next. I just hope we keep our record of beating teams we should beat. The likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico matches are bonus games really.

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We played better and controlled the game, if it wasn’t for the utter-rusty attack, things could’ve been different. However, we must admit that it’s not that RM didn’t play well in the defense… they ran a lot left and right, even Hazard and Benzema came back to help their defense (which is a bit rare for Benzema, Hazard comes back often).

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You’re not wrong Shend. We had chances to hurt Madrid, but our attack has been our weakness since the start of the season. We were more fortunate in the other matches.

But it’s still Sevilla hasta la muerte. We’ll bounce back.

It doesn’t really mean sh*t if you can’t have a decent shot on target. It could also just a tactic from Zidane to let us control and they play counter attack.

I would say it’s just the quality is not there up front. Lope can’t fix this. The best we can do is to play well defensively and win most of the match against weaker team to get a top 4 this season.

The answer is on our bench. I swear Dabbur isn’t this bad. He was better in those 5 minutes in Azerbaijan than De Jong in 5 games!

Once Rony Lopes starts playing like a €25M rated player, we’ll have Ocampos on the other flank and Chicharito leading the line.

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Totally agree. De jong has had his chance and failed to deliver. Lopetegui has to realise this and give another player a chance. We had better players on bench tonight. I didn’t agree with Banega and Vázquez playing together either. We were too slow in midfield and Madrid took advantage of it. That was a strange decision and didn’t work well.

Lopetegui got his team wrong but overall he’s done okay and we made a decent start. We at Eibar next and an opportunity on Thursday to get back on track. I expect us to make changes now as we need a response.

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He’s managed to build a solid foundation so far. I wonder if he’s trying establish that first in order to become more attacking as the season goes on. To think we couldn’t choose from Dabbur, Munir, Rony, Bryan, Pozo…

Perhaps it’ll be the reverse of Sampaoli’s season. He started out with all guns blazing, only for the team to get fatigued, and him forced to be more conservative as the season progressed.

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Totally toothless in attack. We had 1 shot all game which was from an offside position. I feel a bit sorry for De Jong. If we are to play him as a center forward the service to him has got to be there, last night too many times Navas and Ocampos crossed the ball far too long for him to have any chance of getting to it.

The ref played a part as usual blowing up every time a madrid player threw himself to the floor and the worst was not even giving a foul for that tackle by Bale on Navas it deserved a yellow at least viewed from where I was sitting, instead he booked Lope for protesting. Unbelievable.

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The team needs better attacking options and some pace upfront. Last season we have beaten this Real Madrid side with a 3-0 win, thanks to our front line possessing some pace…

This season we lack the athletism of Last Season’s forwards, which makes us to play a slower passing game, which in turn enables the opponents to re-organize in the back comfortably.

What we need is pacey attacks that catches the opponents off-guard. The perfect example to this is the Munir’s goal against Qarabag on Thursday. We need more of that kind of gameplay.

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Managed to watch the first half even though I was on overnight shift, to be honest it didn’t thrill me at all but that was expected from the match squad, Lope went for the slowest possible combination which is the exact opposite of what we need.

Munir and Lopes didn’t even make the bench, were they injured? And Lope should have known that starting Mudo and Banega is just committing the midfield to death by asphyxiation. Looking at our victories against this tepid team in past seasons pace was always the way to go, this was not on the agenda last night and a pathetic 0 shots on target when Courtois is in a charitable mood is unforgivable. A tactical fart from Lope on this.

Luuk De Jong tried hard but couldn’t score or get into dangerous areas, Ocampos and Navas really tried to help him but it wasn’t enough, all too often we saw Luuk have to ball played to him but get swarmed by defenders with no help from anyone (remember the midfield is Jordan, Banega Mudo and Fernando), he’s not the quickest on the pitch either so it’s just him on an island dragging the offence along at a snail’s pace. I saw us bringing up the Kanoute and Saviola tandem from years past and we should really adopt this approach; Hernandez, Munir and Lopes can either start with Luuk or play behind him and move into spaces created by Luuk’s physical presence.

Us playing at home against Real is a fixture I really look forward to as we have made tearing apart their overpriced team and stars a habit, a draw is barely acceptable and a loss just leaves a bad taste in the mouth especially after the very decent start to this season.

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Is it just me or does Lopetegui’s tactics always seem to be set up to avoid losing a game as opposed to trying to win?

I’m still upbeat about our chances this season. We have the foundations in place for a successful season. However, Lopetegui needs to address the attack and be a bit more proactive in games. We are solid at back and strong in midfield.

Although we are lacking the cutting edge up front either due to wrong personnel picked, Lopetegui tactics and also we are missing Ben yedder and sarabia. However, I think we still have the players to cope with that if Lopetegui picks the right players and system.

It’s good we have a game on Thursday to put things right and get back on track. Hopefully we can respond with another positive away performance.

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It is one defeat in a long season. No need to panic just yet.

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Sevilla are OK, we are just 2 points away from leading the league and 6 points above the relegation zone, so no need to worry there, at this stage, though it counts for nothing. The defeat against Madrid is not important in the Marathon.

We have, I believe, the best squad in our history in terms of strength and depth and width. The era of Palop, Alves, Kanoute and Fabiano was probably our best 14 players, and now we have 20 or more top quality players.

But deep inside, you all know that this will not end well with Lopetegui as manager.

Just hope it’s not a re-run of Machin’s reign, that was pretty deflating. On the bright side Javi Gracia has already been fired from Watford so he can always jump in. :smile:

And we normally have about 7 injuries by now, this year none, so that’s more good news.

How did thngs unfold after 3.5 years of Emery, I think this is the order
Sampaoli, Caparros, Machin, Montella, Caparros, Lopetegui.
Seems like an eternity since Montella was there, but it’s 6 managers in 2.5 seasons.
Where does Berrizo fit in that list (memory loss)

Sampaoli, Berizzo, Montella, Caparros, Machin, Caparros, Lopetegui.

Berizzo was crap, I didn’t rate him at Celta before so it was a surprise appointment for me, and I really hated the fact so many people both in and out of the club seemed to think he should keep his job just because he had cancer, that’s not a reason to keep an underperforming football manager.

Montella though. :man_facepalming: I said before the appointment he would be an absolute disaster, and he didn’t fail to disappoint. Dreadful manager, I don’t know how he still get such high profile jobs, the guy should be managing in Serie B or C not A.

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Thanks, I was confused over Sampaoli, when the Argentine national team wanted him around January, we all knew he was going to leave, but not when. I had a feeling he didn’t see the season out and Caparros came in, but that was the year after with Montello.

And Carriço has played under all 7 managerships (8 including Emery)