At least one of Atletico and Barca will drop points tomorrow, hopefully both.
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Wonāt be easy for :poop: against Villarreal either, so we can only hope results go our way.
Real have slipped up at home against lower opposition quite a few times this season and Granada on their day can be a dangerous side as we know.
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Just looked at the table and weāve only lost twice which shows how hard we are to beat.
The 8 draws is the problem and thatās chiefly because we donāt score enough goals.
Elche at home should be a win right?
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Great performances today by some of our players, things look positive putting aside the disappointment of today. Martial balooned his first cross and failed a basic control in the second half but he showed heās going to be a killer asset for Sevilla, though not a solution to our season.
AcuƱa, Papu and Tecatito are all in a class above the liga standard.
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The problem is we donāt score enough like you say. Every game is a struggle to win. The elche game will be hard fought game like the rest so far.
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Thereās nobody there in front of goal, we dont play dedicated forwards and we donāt deliver to them, they have to hunt the ball, the connection and the position.
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As daft as it sounds I still donāt think we have the top 4 secure yet.
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How do you suddenly doubt it? why would you suspect a downfall? after being so positive all this time?
your manager is still the same, and the squad only got better.
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Winless in four consecutive matches. I think top four is about 90% sealed but we need to pick up our form quickly
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In my opinion we are playing worse than :poop:, Barca and atleti right now. In terms of attack we are the weakest out of all of these teams in last few games. This needs to change or our position will come under threat.
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Thatās always been the case tho.
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Well Iām trying to admit I was wrong. You and ShendM were correct. I feel in this vain we arenāt going to get enough wins to keep this position. We canāt rely on trying to win 1-0 every game.
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I agree with this 100%. I can see where the other guys were coming from. I was just trying to stay positive a lot and ignore our faults while we were scraping the wins.
Itās getting harder to ignore though. The guys were right when they said every game is the same and s struggle. I donāt find it easy to watch us and we simply have to defend well or we in trouble in any game. Luckily we have the best defence in the league and a great defensive coach.
The problem is that alone wonāt get us 2nd place. We need to be create more, be less predictable and more dynamic/pacey in final 3rd. Itās very easy to defend against us and if we not careful teams will get even better at playing us. This needs to change fast if we want to maintain our high position.
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Itās this willingness to play to win, against the mentality to play safe and hope to win what has been happening for years. A fear of risk and a preference to focus on conservation than daring and dedication to aggressive plays. We have always numbed ourselves.
Weāve āagreedā with this, so we canāt be expecting magic and 4-0 wins out of the blue. We play for results and thatās how we will be for the rest of the season.
Itās not that this concept has changed, it has been the same for all this time. So thatās why at the time to me you canāt support the playstyle just because it gets results, and bless lord Lope to the heavens, when the goals just fell our way. And when it doesnāt go our way, not support it anymore.
We can bless Papu and Tecatito for getting loose out of that strictness, eventho it took a while for Papu, he found his role and itās leading us atleast somewhere. And for example Ocampos and Mir for their deciveness to go for what they go for, which helped us get our results. But almost nothing is due to our proper play.
I still think we are good enough to scrape enough wins to keep up with the top 4. Play towards Papu and Tecatito, let Martial grow into the team and we should win enough games. Our topscorer Mir, has won 1 chance 1 goal games for us. He will be working hard to prove him and we can fall back on him, if Nesyri struggles to long. We atleast do have options, where a lot of teams donāt.
Because after all, If Youssef put that 100% chance away, or Rakitic converts the penalty. We would be cheering with a cheeky smile like usual.
If we fall out of top 4, itās an absolute disaster and insane mismanagement.
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I agree with you guys but just letting you know Lopetegui wonāt get sacked, unless we donāt finish top 4.
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Iāve noticed youāve become less positive in recent weeks and I do share your thoughts. Top four should be okay. Weāre good enough with the games weāve got left to get enough results to secure that.
However we do need to improve both performances and results. Up until recently, Lope was getting away with it but now weāre hitting a barren spot and the āluckā we had at the start of the season is running out.
Our next six games are at home to Elche, away at Espanyol, home to :poop:, away at Alaves and Rayo and home to Sociedad. Itās a crucial run of fixtures for us and we need to be aiming for maximum points or close to it. We donāt want to have a poor run of results in this spell with some tough games to end the season against Barca, Real, Atletico and Villarreal.
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Yeah I agree. Considering we play all those sides you mention away from home as well. If we arenāt to far ahead of them by then it could get very complicated and dangerous for us.
I expected our performances to improve a bit by now but really itās been no different all season. The sort of run of grinding out wins can only go on for so long. You need games where you can dominate teams and score some goals. It helps build an aura and make more teams worry about our offence.
These type of games are good for players confidence, for conserving energy and make us better to watch. Instead, the pattern is the same trying to keep the opponent at bay and just hope we can steal a goal either early in first half or late in the 2nd half.
You are correct that these narrow wins are now turning to draws and if we not careful could turn to narrow defeats. We have to regroup but there has to be work on how we transition to attack. We need to be less predictable to the opposition if we are going to put defences more on the back foot and score more goals.
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If we are going to score more goals we need to get players forward far quicker. Watch some of the other teams such as R Madrid & dare I say :poop:, As soon as they have the ball there are at least 3 or 4 players racing towards the opponents goal giving them various options to attack. All we get is Yen or Rafa Mir standing still surrounded by defenders while the ball goes Bono to Kounde to Carlos, to Acuna, back to Kounde then to Bono and maybe forward to Jordan or Raki before being passed back and repeated 2 or 3 times before we even think of attacking. Iām getting sick of watching it.
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Iāve noticed Martial trying to set up at least 3 counters last night, but he failed because the team does not have a proper counter-attacking system - it would benefit the team massively and quite surprised that Lope is not thinking the same.
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