Fairly good start, awful middle but strong finish to the game.
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That was nice to watch. Could have lead to a good counter (and maybe a goal) but we donāt have a proper plan for that unfortunately.
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I feel like this will be great when we have Lamela and Corona. They both have eye for space, and tight touches for others, On whatever side of the pitch they are on, they can find a combination or a way to get try out play it. And generally have a good feel for the flow in an attack.
Ocampos too many times, has already decided his play and canāt addapt it, it will be through the player or around and sometimes just puts on some of these horse eye flaps. He rather runs the ball all the way and has trouble finding the best destination in dynamic situations with multiple players. I feel Corona and Lamela will find eachother well.
Mir is a good striker in the box, but he has to learn to connect with the rest, canāt be absent. Him and Ocampos, I get that feeling they prefer personal succes over creating the best team opportunity, and them not looking for eachother sometimes. Or how Ocampos massively ruins a good chance and not apologizes or looks him in the eye. They both have this. A certain selfishness is understandable for a striker but they need to learn when.
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But this problem might stem back from our general lack of chances, back to the point where if we gotten somewhere that one might call an opportunity we just had to go for it (letās call it the just fcking shoot era, which I hope we passed) Then towards improving the type of chances, to get more efficient. Rather 2 clean chances than 5 crap ones but thatās a huge process and might come later. For now, we just have to do with chances and try to favor the best positioned player I agree with this. Once Mir has given 2 assists he will be on the receiving end soon enough, same for Ocampos.
Honestly like Mark said, I canāt wait for february/march and see how we do.
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You are 100% right. There is lots to improve in the attacking play. Itās something lopetegui needs to work on himself with the team and train them to be more explosive/creative when we go 0-1 or 0-2 down. We did okay in the end but itās something we still need to Improve a lot. To implement more styles into our game and not be 1 dimensional.
At least we got that test today and we responded well in the last 30 mins so it certainly positive and something to try improve upon. Yeah Iām looking forward to getting all our players back and especially in attack. Then we can properly judge how much work we still need to do or if we can improve more in the final third.
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Makes me think about where to put Papu, because he really has been the catalyst or ignition for almost everything lately. But the way Papu could play towards the end of the Celta game, is also part of how Celta let it slip, and dropped their organisation. ThatĀ“s never allowed by no oponent from the start till minute 70 I feel. And thatĀ“s the games where he feels blant and invisible, that I remember when he started sometime back. But yeh could be addaptation and growing into his role. He looked like a real leader, that I remember him from Atalanta. Was great.
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Eventually very likely yes, but I imagine he has still some safe zone credit left from Lope before he gets fĀ“ed. I donĀ“t think Lope left the nation yet but would need to ask the only other inhabitant @Edinho
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Probably should be loaned out at the least. Lope likes him but among all of the wingers that we have when fully fit and ready to play, heās the least likely to make the first team. But you never know with Lope!
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Plenty of problems to solve but I canāt complain much because weāve passed through an extremely tricky period and come through with our hopes intact and still up there in the race.
If we get a couple of reinforcements and some of our injured players back we could finish on 86 points or thereabouts. If we get bogged down with injuries and covid again itās going to be tough.
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For keeping the second place 
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We will have a better chance at trying to break the 80 point mark or at least match last season if we go out the europa league early in my opinion.
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Agreed
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I wasnāt able to watch the game yesterday but Iām pleased we managed to come back from two goals down and get a point and almost win it also.
However it is disappointing to drop two points at home and we really need Real to slip up today or the title race is looking a tough ask and weāre looking over our backs for second place also. Our injury and Covid problems are finally catching up with us it would seem.
At least weāve remained unbeaten however and now we have a break where hopefully a few players are back for what will be another tough February. Maybe going out of the Europa League wouldnāt be such a bad thing if weāre thinking of winning the league and second.
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Great analysis on the podcast (Celta and Valencia) and you jogged my memory on a load of things I had forgotten, first of which that :poop: got punished for the Jordan incident with the stadium closed for two home games which theyāll have to play in the Olympic Stadium. Iāve not been able to confirm itās with or without fans.
The other thing was the RSP during the Celta game. Although some of the stadium whistled the back passes, the Biris never stopped chanting and encouraging the team.
The discussion on Mir was very interesting 
And @Edinho, yeh we probably will finish second.
Final thing, get well soon Lopetegui
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