Closed Real Madrid 3-1 Chelsea

[edetarod 2,155]

are our defenders aware of the fact that you're allowed to take the ball from players BEFORE they reach our penalty box?

[Drogzola 283]

When we actually decided to pass the ball and move off the ball we looked good. It just didn't happen often enough. MVG was great in defense and struggled a bit going forward.

[bushman 2,043]

the hiring an entire team was a figure of speech to illustrate that even we bring more players (1, 2, 3, 11) we may solve some problems, but there will still have others. I didn't plan to imply you meant we needed a new team. I think the problems are more about maturing this team and sharpening it rather than for example bringing a creative mf as you suggested

I think what we need is time and two adjustments. Like who for example?

Because I think we're good in the creative MF... it's the function they perform on the pitch and the zone they play that might take away some of their creativity.

Well, I hope you are correct to say maturing the team, but I doubt it. Wait & see.

I just thought, after seeing them last night, such an erratic passing, Real played with them at will for the first 15-20 minutes. I honestly don´t understand what Jose was trying last night. Poor Frankie, looked like a school boy out there. He had no business to start the game, I feel. Wasn´t ready, fitness wise.

[Milan 17,835]

Before the game -

José - 'We will try some new things, different combinations'

Including Lampard in the line up. It's just a friendly, against a top team but result is the last thing that matters.

[Barbara 15,149]

Lamps isn't our Ronaldo, but he is a member of the squad and I'd rather have one more player available against Hull then a victory against Real Madrid in pre-season. If the result was all that mattered then we could've parked the bus like we did against Barca and played negatively, but this was about getting minutes on the pitch and finding out about how the team reacts against different opposition.

We got knocked on our arse last night...and that's sometimes the best thing that can happen to a team. I'd take this type of lesson over an 8-1 win against Malaysia's best every day of the week. It's been a good pre-season.

I didn't mean we would have won or that we should have. I meant it was a better formation for 4-3-3 and that we could have performed better. In one of my posts I said bringing up the score was pointless, as the result wasn't important, whereas the performance was. So it's how when facing a stronger opposition I could still see most (if not all) our problems last season. which is basically bad transition from defence to attack raffling way too many balls with long passes that are pointless and bad instead of passing it through the midfield; how some players were playing in positions they really don't perform well. How we continue to have attack issues no matter if we start the match with Ba, Lukaku or Torres and how I think Lukaku isn't ready to start for us in big matches - both because it's too much pressure on him (although today there was only moderate pressure) and how he isn't technically ready yet. I'd much rather prepare him to take the position naturally, slowly, prioritizing his development not the team's need.

I've seen so many youngsters being promoted way too fast, being asked to do way to much and it affected their confidence and evolution on medium term. Why possibly risk his development by throwing him to do something he's not prepared yet? Some think he is, but I personally don't. Then we could disagree about that.

There are many things in that match we did bad - some worsened by the much superior opposition, some because of our own weaknesses. Now it's the best time to identify the issues as those matches really are worth nothing except for preparation to the new season - reason why I'd rather seeing us testing a 4-3-3 that we could really use against some opposition rather than one that I don't think we'll ever see again. I said it sucked before the match... the game showed didn't show my opinion about it. Isn't pre-season where tests should be taken? Why not use or second to last game and the most challenging of all to test a really competitive alternate formation? I could ask Mourinho now if he thought that those 11 players together were what he had in mind for a formation when he decides to use 4-3-3 and I'm positive he would say no. He was testing certain players on certain positions, he wasn't testing a formation. Testing certain players during the season is easier, especially when we face weaker sides as for example in the cups whereas testing entire formations is more difficult as he will certainly rotate the team and give rest to one player or another here and there when he opposition allows him to do it.

Finding deficiencies now will benefit us in the future - reason why I named (partially) the match report as a beneficial loss unless the adminis renamed it.

I think this match helped me to have more realistic expectations about this team in the next 2-3 months. I was under the impression given the other 2 matches (I don't consider the first three) that some things have already improved. But they didn't and that's sort of expected because Mourinho isn't working for a month yet, and some key players only arrived 10 days ago.

I guess the problem is if we criticize, some people don't care to understand where we're coming from, they just label it with 'criticism over a loss on a pre-season game' when some people here who criticized the match today were complaining about old issues that are still present. It has nothing to do with losing a pre-season match to Madrid, but everything to do with carrying those issues to the official competition by using excuses such as 'it was a friendly' or 'it was Madrid that has a better squad than us'. In my case I also said I think we need two adjustments (signings) in the squad. A high level striker and a backup CB because I'm not confident Kalas is ready.

If we don't look at those friendlies critically, they're pointless. Mourinho said it himself he has a lot of work to do and if he said that is because he saw issues that need to be fixed, some of them that weren't as clear against weaker sides. At least that's the reasoning I had in mind when I said the same, even before his interview was posted.

[Barbara 15,149]

Well, I hope you are correct to say maturing the team, but I doubt it. Wait & see.

I just thought, after seeing them last night, such an erratic passing, Real played with them at will for the first 15-20 minutes. I honestly don´t understand what Jose was trying last night. Poor Frankie, looked like a school boy out there. He had no business to start the game, I feel. Wasn´t ready, fitness wise.

actually I deleted two lines from my post (without noticing)

I meant

"I think what we need is time and two adjustments. a striker and a backup CB. Why do you say we need a creative midfield? Isn't that what Mata, Hazard and de Bruyne are? I think they're class and are basically that. What did you have in mind as a creative MF Like who for example?

I really think with those two adjustments, it's only a matter of maturing. Without those two adjustments it's a matter of maturing, but also raising the challenge and depending more on the likes of Mata, de Bruyne, Oscar and Hazard to score and for Luiz not to pick any injury throughout the whole season.

[Weckerz 3,781]

You need to get a grip yourself.

Posts like these really, really irk me.

?

[We Hate Scouse 10,261]

Can't believe how some people are reacting to a friendly loss

[Milan 17,835]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_fp_h_uMAM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFtDS9EwT70

[bushman 2,043]

actually I deleted two lines from my post (without noticing)

I meant

"I think what we need is time and two adjustments. a striker and a backup CB. Why do you say we need a creative midfield? Isn't that what Mata, Hazard and de Bruyne are? I think they're class and are basically that. What did you have in mind as a creative MF Like who for example?

I really think with those two adjustments, it's only a matter of maturing. Without those two adjustments it's a matter of maturing, but also raising the challenge and depending more on the likes of Mata, de Bruyne, Oscar and Hazard to score and for Luiz not to pick any injury throughout the whole season.

The way you see it, may not be totally agreeable with others. However, I admire your optimism. Keep on trucking.

I still see a plenty of improvement that´s needed on the team. I would like to see another similar player as Mata. This guy gets injured & the team is weak without him.

[Barbara 15,149]

I agree with @the only place to be above who says that getting players fit is far more important than results in pre-season (not even debatable IMO) but I also want to say that we didn't lose because we played Lampard. He struggled early, but we didn't concede because of him and he was actually responsible for 3 very good chances (the pass to Lukaku, the penalty shout, and the shot he had saved.). De Bruyne and Moses had a really good first 10 minutes of the second half, but after that were completely useless. Why would they have done any better? In other words, 1) we would have lost even with another player starting 2) it doesn't matter.

I think we could have tested a formation that could be used later in the regular season. I didn't like the line-up even before the match started. I thought it wouldn't work and having a player out of shape would only make it worse. Instead we could have Lampard to play in the second against a more tired opposition... he would have played, worked out and still faced a strong opposition... much stronger than Roma, Hull, Villa, etc because that's what a slightly tired or B Real Madrid team is.

It's more about an effective formation, testing players in the positions they could produce better, rather than ignoring Lamps. I think he's important to us. I think there are matches that fit him better than other MF, but I don't think with a squad as deep as we have now that we were in desperate need to use him in the first half because less tired Ronaldo, Modric and Özil is what he needed. I can't really understand why it's so different for him to play the second or the first half if he needs minutes - not necessarily to face the best players in the world before they get slightly (or very) tired. We could moved Oscar for his position, or we could have started with a winger on Oscar's place instead of moving him to the wing and overexerting an out of shape Lamps like he was.

I don't think we're in desperately need to recover Lamps when so many fans in this very forum thought we shouldn't (or couldn't) even have extended his contract (this one girl here wants Lampard to stay much longer, as stated many times before). It's not like we're short of players in his position either, in case he isn't completely fit by August 18. Actually he won't be fit, regardless of which half he played yesterday or if he played 30 minutes instead of 45. Rui Faria, Mourinho and Terry all of them commentated that time lost on pre-season takes months to be recovered as the team will always be ahead of you physically, so when he finally reaches the level the rest is now on, they will still be ahead of him, until the others finally reach their limit which takes months.

[TrippingStep 336]

I agree with @the only place to be above who says that getting players fit is far more important than results in pre-season (not even debatable IMO) but I also want to say that we didn't lose because we played Lampard. He struggled early, but we didn't concede because of him and he was actually responsible for 3 very good chances (the pass to Lukaku, the penalty shout, and the shot he had saved.). De Bruyne and Moses had a really good first 10 minutes of the second half, but after that were completely useless. Why would they have done any better? In other words, 1) we would have lost even with another player starting 2) it doesn't matter.

On De Bruyne and Moses, They are great to play direct football and can help defensively against team thant don't really play that good in midfield, in short defending against one opponent but in positional sense working as a midfield team where everyone has a role, they need some work as they never really played in a team like that.

Moses a little bit with Benitez but his defending was not that great, good efforts but bad timing and wrong position with the rest of the team. When he was coming as a substitute in the last maches under Benitez, he didn't really help defensively, he looked often lost.

Otherwise, I don't understand why Eden don't chip the ball, it's like he doesn't wanna do it since he hit Reina's head in a match at Liverpool. Trying between the legs is not a good idea.

[yuvala 2,167]

There are no excuses, they were better. They'd probably win even if it wasn't a friendly.

-We have young and talented players, players who this is their first season in blue.

-We have a new manager who barely got any time yet to work with the players.

We will be much better a couple of months from now, I'm sure.

And we're good enough to win the league, IMO. And it's not that we CANT win the CL, its just that we're not favorites because we're not on that level just yet..

Edited August 8, 2013 by yuvala

[Atlas Lion 1,223]

are our defenders aware of the fact that you're allowed to take the ball from players BEFORE they reach our penalty box?

Result of fatigue, as well as ball watching. Mentality aspect and focus goes right out the window.

But that is what pre-season and training is for.

[Hutcho 8,443]

Eventually saw the game. Not great. But it's only pre season and that was a strong Madrid side. And the result isn't that relevant anyway. Not a great performance. But improvement can be made so I am not too bothered by it.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Hutcho

[Barbara 15,149]

I agree with @the only place to be above who says that getting players fit is far more important than results in pre-season (not even debatable IMO) but I also want to say that we didn't lose because we played Lampard. He struggled early, but we didn't concede because of him and he was actually responsible for 3 very good chances (the pass to Lukaku, the penalty shout, and the shot he had saved.). De Bruyne and Moses had a really good first 10 minutes of the second half, but after that were completely useless. Why would they have done any better? In other words, 1) we would have lost even with another player starting 2) it doesn't matter.

Forgot to answer the second part.

I never said or implied we lost because of Lamps. I meant that was a bad 4-3-3 formation, we could have played him in the second, giving someone sharper to the toughest part, have played a real winger where Oscar played, or have played Oscar where Lamps played (regardless if those tests with Oscar and the rightful winger were done in the first or in the second half). That's not the point. That's giving importance to the result - which I didn't.

We had two penalties for us that weren't called. We could have drawn, we could have won, who knows what would have happened if we had scored. Either way we would have exposed issues I thought were already being improved, but this match showed they weren't. We were only better against weaker sides. I think pre-season is the best time to find issues and work on them, instead of working on them during the regular season.

So if we had the penalties called and we had scored and we have won I would be complaining about the same things because the score doesn't matter! Hazard could have netted that chance he had at the beginning of the second half. Or Iker could have not defended that header by Ivanovic also at the begining of the second half. And then we would have won this... just like we won the odd matches last season when we played poorly collectively and we would continue to have issues that could compromise other matches - like many were last season.

Isn't that the history of this team for the last couple of years? Having the attack to overcome how much this defence concedes? Having to rely on players individually winning us matches because collectively we would have failed? How many matches we failed collectively that made us end 6th in EPL and knocked out of Champions League in the group stage? How many times Drobga, Mata, Cech, Lampard individually scored for us and saved the day? How many times they didn't and we lost or drew?

Except on CL when we parked the bus and were lucky in the matches against Barça and Bayern (and in addition to that Cech saved us way too many times). For two seasons it's a tale of us finding a way to compensate a defence that concedes too many with goals (when Cech save tons of them) or to overcome that our striker can't score and so we rely on everyone else to do so. Lamps included. I suppose some people must be really content with ending the EPL the position we did two seasons ago, with being knocked out in the stage group of UCL, with struggling to win against 2nd level teams in Europe to win EL. Because fact is collectively and tactically we've been a mess for two years and while I don't think 25 days of pre-season is enough to fix it I don't understand why two games away from official matches we still are nowhere near what will be our first team. So instead of trying this first team now (down from two key players already) - at least half time - and fixing its issues now, we're only focusing on the physical part, on making tests with players in all possible positions and we will end up testing the first team only during official competition. So we're only delaying handling our issues...

But I know nobody was content with the past 2 seasons - because although we won two important titles - we got knocked out out of the group stage playing poorly, we finished 6th in the league with the squad we had - and in a month from now everyone will be bitching about the same problems I'm complaining now (if they persist, and they might), like everyone bitched about them throughout the last two seasons. Then I'll come here again and say: 'that's why I acknowledged those problems in the pre-season. That's why I thought we should have done like Carlo did with Real Madrid, making less subs as each game passed and tried different versions of a first team (with 1-2 changes from one match to the other) instead of prioritizing giving Lamps the first 45 minutes on the only real challenge we had in the pre-season or testing everyone in the squad (except FB and CB) in all possible positions under the sun'.

I think we need time and I see no reason to waste time - and opportunities like a match against a team like Madrid - to start the improvements that need to be done I want those things to be worked by the end of the pre-season. Many of you prefer to be handled in a couple of weeks. Let's agree to disagree.

[Atlas Lion 1,223]

Hazard definitely needs to work on his composure in his shots, once he masters that, he could become absolutely unstoppable

[Stingray 9,441]

Forgot to answer the second part.

I never said or implied we lost because of Lamps. I meant that was a bad 4-3-3 formation, we could have played him in the second, giving someone sharper to the toughest part, have played a real winger where Oscar played, or have played Oscar where Lamps played (regardless if those tests with Oscar and the rightful winger were done in the first or in the second half). That's not the point. That's giving importance to the result - which I didn't.

We had two penalties for us that weren't called. We could have drawn, we could have won, who knows what would have happened if we had scored. Either way we would have exposed issues I thought were already being improved, but this match showed they weren't. We were only better against weaker sides. I think pre-season is the best time to find issues and work on them, instead of working on them during the regular season.

So if we had the penalties called and we had scored and we have won I would be complaining about the same things because the score doesn't matter! Hazard could have netted that chance he had at the beginning of the second half. Or Iker could have not defended that header by Ivanovic also at the begining of the second half. And then we would have won this... just like we won the odd matches last season when we played poorly collectively and we would continue to have issues that could compromise other matches - like many were last season.

Isn't that the history of this team for the last couple of years? Having the attack to overcome how much this defence concedes? Having to rely on players individually winning us matches because collectively we would have failed? How many matches we failed collectively that made us end 6th in EPL and knocked out of Champions League in the group stage? How many times Drobga, Mata, Cech, Lampard individually scored for us and saved the day? How many times they didn't and we lost or drew?

Except on CL when we parked the bus and were lucky in the matches against Barça and Bayern (and in addition to that Cech saved us way too many times). For two seasons it's a tale of us finding a way to compensate a defence that concedes too many with goals (when Cech save tons of them) or to overcome that our striker can't score and so we rely on everyone else to do so. Lamps included. I suppose some people must be really content with ending the EPL the position we did two seasons ago, with being knocked out in the stage group of UCL, with struggling to win against 2nd level teams in Europe to win EL. Because fact is collectively and tactically we've been a mess for two years and while I don't think 25 days of pre-season is enough to fix it I don't understand why two games away from official matches we still are nowhere near what will be our first team. So instead of trying this first team now (down from two key players already) - at least half time - and fixing its issues now, we're only focusing on the physical part, on making tests with players in all possible positions and we will end up testing the first team only during official competition. So we're only delaying handling our issues...

But I know nobody was content with the past 2 seasons - because although we won two important titles - we got knocked out out of the group stage playing poorly, we finished 6th in the league with the squad we had - and in a month from now everyone will be bitching about the same problems I'm complaining now (if they persist, and they might), like everyone bitched about them throughout the last two seasons. Then I'll come here again and say: 'that's why I acknowledged those problems in the pre-season. That's why I thought we should have done like Carlo did with Real Madrid, making less subs as each game passed and tried different versions of a first team (with 1-2 changes from one match to the other) instead of prioritizing giving Lamps the first 45 minutes on the only real challenge we had in the pre-season or testing everyone in the squad (except FB and CB) in all possible positions under the sun'.

I think we need time and I see no reason to waste time - and opportunities like a match against a team like Madrid - to start the improvements that need to be done I want those things to be worked by the end of the pre-season. Many of you prefer to be handled in a couple of weeks. Let's agree to disagree.

Lol. What triggered this outburst, because I fail to see the link with some of the previous posts, Barbara. Nobody is claiming our issues shouldn't be tackled. Quite the contrary when I look back at @torontochelsea , @theonlyplacetobe (and mine as well) posts.

What the hell are you all agreeing to disagree about? Anyone still know exactly