Arthur

Alik said:

First half was excellent. Valverde did well to sub him out in the second, though.

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Agree, he is great but he still has some growing pains that will show from time to time. Think EV is doing very good job with him atm.
Great 1st half today

After 08-13 Xavi I never thought I would see someone like that. When he starts cutting lines he will be perfect. Only de Jong needed now and midfield will be our strong point once again.

Wonder if he will play in the Midweek Copa match.

Seems like a good game for him to get even more minutes even if he's already a starter.

Great talent here. Finally a bit of fresh air in our midfield

xXKonan said:

Wonder if he will play in the Midweek Copa match.

Seems like a good game for him to get even more minutes even if he's already a starter.

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No need for that. Alena and Vidal need minutes. Alena, Vidal and Denis will probably play in the midle.

Good match. Don't know what happened in 2nd half but our entire midfield had bad 20 mins then.

xXKonan said:

Wonder if he will play in the Midweek Copa match.

Seems like a good game for him to get even more minutes even if he's already a starter.

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He could use the rest.

Barcaman said:

Good match. Don't know what happened in 2nd half but our entire midfield had bad 20 mins then.

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Madrid played Nacho and Ramos back, and Marcelo, Kroos, Modric, Casemiro and Vazquez all gung-ho on us in midfield. With Bale, Benzema and Isco up front. Simple case of outnumbered midfield with no options to pass to forward bar Suarez.

They were desperate and went all in, Valverde was slow to react and we got 15-20 mins of chaos.

Dont know if you actually should react faster: I mean the starting eleven is reasonably rested after the half time break, let them take the hit - and then finish them off with fresh blood.


Edit: I know what you mean, and I wont disagree. Maybe someone like Dembele would have punished them sooner - or maybe his lack of defending would have costed us. Who knows? Football is a game of chance.

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Much better quality compilation.

His passing is getting more progressive.

serghei said:

Madrid played Nacho and Ramos back, and Marcelo, Kroos, Modric, Casemiro and Vazquez all gung-ho on us in midfield. With Bale, Benzema and Isco up front. Simple case of outnumbered midfield with no options to pass to forward bar Suarez.

They were desperate and went all in, Valverde was slow to react and we got 15-20 mins of chaos.

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This...Real Madrid’s played with three center-backs in the 2nd half, I actually saw that and said it in the chatroom. It took EV and his staff 25 minutes to see it and make any changes. He is getting paid millions, and I pay to watch his stupidity. Isn't it ironic, don't you think? It's like rain on your wedding day...

That pass to Alba there at 2:06 is so hard to pull off. Made it look dead simple. Most midfielders go long ball there, but Arthur played a 40m. low height pass that spared Alba of an extra touch.

Co0ter said:

Not sure if troll or just stupid.

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😂 calling a great game and yet people talks here about his 1st half performance. this is the forum for nuthuggers and haters. don't know if guys seriously watching the game or just look at ur fave p!ayers...lol

xXKonan said:

Arthur-Busi-Rakitic were outnumbered for a bit for the 20 mins and it really wasn't their fault.

The team opened up as soon as Valverde made the Semedo-Dembele sub.

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well that's obvious, I don't know why it took so long for Rafinha and Arthur sub. Been calling that sub at the start of the 2nd half in the match game

biraboyz said:

well that's obvious, I don't know why it took so long for Rafinha and Arthur sub. Been calling that sub at the start of the 2nd half in the match game

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Arthur had some shaky problems in the second half But I don't think he was the problem really.

Rafinha's problem was he despite being a good defensive player wasn't providing much on the ball. He looked a step behind offensively compared to the rest. It was easy for Real to just stick 5-6 Dudes in the Midfield to counter what he brought.

Just subbing off Arthur for Vidal wasn't really going to work yet. If anything it would have probably been a disaster since you lose a lot of control and forcing Rakitic and Busi into tough positions that they aren't comfortable with.

What helped fixed our problems was both the Semedo and Dembele subs. Semedo being subbed on allowed to push Roberto who was much better than Rafinha into the Midfield to help negate Real's advantage. Dembele with his pace and amount of space help exploit Real's weaknesses in the 3-5-2.

Valverde was basically playing a Chess match and when he finally made the killer move it was over For Real and in this case, the Semedo-Dembele subs were spot on which allowed us to get two more goals and brought on Vidal to basically close it out with a goal.