Tuesday 4 November 2014 11:02, UK
Guillem Balague blogs on David Moyes and Real Sociedad, Atletico Madrid's changing style and why Barcelona's players are losing faith in Luis Enrique...
David Moyes has a great opportunity to show what he’s made of by becoming Real Sociedad boss.
The club has made him their number-one choice after sacking Jagoba Arrasate and, while we’ll have to see what happens, I really hope he takes the job - even if he stays for only a short time in La Liga before moving on to fresh pastures.
Real Sociedad are a top-quality team that needs a bit of a lift after a poor start to the season. They are languishing second from bottom of the table at the moment - so I really hope Moyes does make the move in the next few days.
Before I move on to your questions, I must mention Atletico Madrid - a team that is changing their style and it’s fantastic to see.
They are passing the ball a lot more around the box. Koke is at the heart of all that. He and Arda Turan are supposed to be wide players but are coming inside a lot and linking with Antoine Griezmann, who also plays between the lines.
On top of that, Mario Mandzukic is scoring so it’s all going well for them and they deserve to be above Barcelona in the table.
END FOR ENRIQUE?
Why is it that nothing is said about Barca midfielders? I am yet to see an article saying anything about the decision by the coach to start Xavi over Rakitic... Xavi and Iniesta have passed their best and Barca need to accept that fact. Barca play a high line and none of these midfielders have the legs to track back when they lose the ball. LS9
GUILLEM SAYS: You obviously haven’t been listening, because we’ve been talking about exactly that! Luis Enrique is caught in two minds - it’s a very different thing to play Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta and Messi as opposed to Mathieu, Luis Suarez and Neymar. These are completely different styles and the hybrid isn’t working. That could be seen in the Celta Vigo game, where the team was far too direct. While it’s true that they had 19 attempts at goal, nine of which were on target, and hit the post four times, a Barcelona victory would have masked the performance. Mascherano said it himself - it wasn’t a good game and the team didn’t have enough control. Their tactics were like those of a one-dimensional heavyweight boxer, trying to knock the opposition out and you expect more from Barcelona than that. You expect them to know when to go fast, when to go short but they just don’t have it in their make-up at the moment. What’s worrying, as I predicted in Revista, is that the defeat at the Bernabeu is affecting Luis Enrique in the eyes of the players; the game-plan was prepared well enough, to the point where Mathieu said he was surprised to play at left-back. Enrique doesn’t talk to the players that often so they don’t know exactly what he wants and that was something that was very clear against Real Madrid - for example, when Xavi started only to be replaced by Rakitic. What was the point of that? It’s no surprise that some of the big players are questioning the manager.
Atletico Madrid (are) a team that is changing their style and it’s fantastic to see.
On the other hand, Real Madrid are continuing to play with accuracy in midfield, with short passing between the lines and Benzema dropping in deep - almost like a number 10. As for Ronaldo…
RON’S ROLE
No mention of the lacklustre performance of Ronaldo in El Clasico? He was average at best and gave very little throughout the game. Bar the penalty (which many a RM player could have taken) his contribution was minimal, this is no defence for an even poorer team performance by Barca but with all the positive points raised by Guillem for the RM players thought it was worth a mention? Ben United
GUILLEM SAYS: Real don’t need Ronaldo at his best right now. He’s gone from being a goal-scorer - or wanting to be a big goal-scorer, dribbling with the ball and always being involved - to being a goal-scorer without the ball. He’s running into space and waiting for the ball in the box and that is confusing people because they think ‘he’s not playing great’. But look at the stats, look at the goals he’s scored; he’s broken a record for the number of goals scored at this stage of the season and he will continue to do so. The fact that he is not dribbling around everybody and doing magic things with the ball doesn’t mean that he’s not playing well.
