MrExcalibur100

Horrible keeping from Casillas. Iker! Iker! Iker! Now you see why Jose benched you? Crybaby.

Whatta MISS!!! From Bale!

I'm sure they charged him a shit ton of money for it too.

Grade 1 hamstrings mean 2 weeks, 3 weeks max.

It was so predictable. Idiotic management from Atletico. You can't just magically recover from a hamstring.

Very poor management if you ask me. Risking a player like that just to play one game when he has his entire career ahead of him. At least now he can recover fully before the world cup.

I just hope no one pulls anything or gets hurt in the opening stages.

Real Madrid: Iker, Varane, Ramos, Coentrao, Carvajal, Modric, DiMaria, Asier, Ronaldo, Benzema, Bale Atletico: Courtois; Juanfran, Godin, Miranda, Filipe Luis; Gabi, Tiago, Koke, Raul Garcia; Villa, Diego Costa So, no Pepe, so Varane starts. Huge game for him. Also, no Turan for Atletico. Costa starts (stay safe and don't get injured!)

Simeone probably doesn't use him there because in a 4-4-2, he maybe thinks it's not solid enough to play him there, or that his creative quality will be more telling playing as an inverted winger,(sort of how Barca play Iniesta on the left wing sometimes) or that Gabi and Tiago are just fantastic players and are not as versatile as Koke so have to play there. Who knows. As for being better, I dunno. The way he plays sometimes, it's basically like a CM and AM on the wing. If we buy him, I'm sure he will play next to Matic though. And if Oscar starts to mess up, we just put Koke there as an AM. Same thing applies to Willian. Koke on RW.

Apart from the fact that Koke has played as a central midfielder many times in his career for Atletico, like Joker10 said. In reality, that's his actual position but Simeone uses him on the left because of Tiago and Gabi. Oscar from what I know has never played there before and should not. I think the only time he's started at central midfield for us was away to Leeds? When Benitez tried it. But that was a 3 man midfield, anyway, not a 4-2-3-1.

Let's just hope he comes through this one unblemished. He's starting.

tbf, Rakitic has played quite a few games as a classic central midfielder for Sevilla in a 2 man midfield. Like Modric or Kroos, he can play these two positions quite well.

Amazing how Steve McClaren was once the England manager. Probably "saving" Bamford for extra time.

It's the blight of English football. The managers are even more mediocre and overrated than the players.

QPR (eh) have scored in the last few mins and will be back in the PL. McClaren is completely clueless for leaving Bamford on the bench against a team down to ten men, Horrible manager. I hope we loan Bamford to a PL side though next season.

How true is the story of him signing a new contract? It's not yet official and no major paper is reporting it.

Personally, Koke will be my first choice even over Pogba who is my second. An absolute pearl of a midfielder. A managers wet-dream. Power, technique, killer passes, can play in the pivot as a holder or a DLP, left wing, right wing and a number 10! Just a beast and an amazing tactical option. Has a wicked set-piece delivery too, something this current crop of players amazingly seem to lack. I won't want to be that club that severely weakens them though. But we should also throw 40-50 million at him and see what Atletico says.

Age is nothing but a number. There are some young players in world football like Hazard, Koke, Pogba, Courtois and Varane that are already some of the best players in their position Their game and skill-set is very well-rounded and they play at a high level, week in week out. They play like they are in their primes already. A few rough edges? yes. Can still get better Absolutely. But as good as anyone in their position. This is what is most important and this is what seperates these players from the Neymar's, Gotze's and Lukaku's, who although talented still have a fairly under-developed skill-set.

Why are you comparing a winger to a central midfielder? A player who plays for Juve in the Serie A to a player who plays for Twente in the mediocre Dutch league? And why do you think stats prove anything at all? Is Tadic also better than Iniesta as well? Yes it is. But we should be shopping at Waitrose not Tesco to fill such an important position. Especially with the money at our disposal. And especially considering the power of the Man City squad we are competing with.

Has he been any more or less inconsistent than Vidal, who has had many poor performances this season? Pogba, like Varane ^^^^^^^^^^^ as someone said above, is a young player who is a very consistent performer. That's one of the things he gets praised for, his consistency. Hardly has any bad games. If we're going to nitpick one or two games where a player doesn't play well then anyone can be made to look "inconsistent". i.e Vidal. This is key. If Pogba is not playing well, it lasts for a certain stretch of games, because of poor form or whatever. Then he picks back up. Inconsistent players have one good game and one bad game and so on. It alternates. Most top players go through the former not the latter. The inconsistent thing has become an unfair tag thrown at young players nowadays, including, initially Hazard, which bordered on the ridiculous, considering it was his first season in England. As for pressure, believe me, Pogba can handle it. A player so young who is the midfield controller for the biggest team in Italy is no joke. A player who is expected to be the midfield lynchpin for France in this up-coming world cup is no joke. Personally, I think he's amazing and fantastically consistent as someone his age shouldn't be.

This is exactly what Pogba does, combined with physical power unlike light-weights like Kroos. I'm not sure which Pogba you're talking about. I'll be willing to pay 40 million for him. Even 50 million.

Exactly.

I disagree with this. I watch Juventus a LOT and Pogba is a player who has been incredibly consistent in his time there. He did go through a rough patch this season but inconsistency and Pogba are not words that should be in the same sentence. By the same token, Vidal is pretty inconsistent because he's had more mediocre than Pogba this season.

No they are not in any immediate financial trouble (very low debt) and of course they can afford to turn that down. It was rumoured they turned down an even bigger bid for Pogba by PSG in the past. I'm not sure how true this so-called bid is though. On twitter, very few sources reporting it.

No chance Juve will sell for less than 50-55 million. We can only hope though. At least, what this means is that our board has recognized Ramires as a serious weakness in this side. I hope we also launch a bid for Koke as well for around the same price to sample both waters simultaneously.