The season started well for Real, winning the UEFA super cup
and then going on a run of 22 matches unbeaten in the league. 2014 was a
wonderful year and 2015 was expected to continue like that. However at the turn
of the year things I've gone downhill. The 22 match winning streak ended at
Valencia, that was followed by a swift elimination from my Copa Del Rey,
shortly afterwards we quite disgraceful slaughter at the hands of Atletico and
coming into March we were still top of the league by 4 points but leaving March
we could easily be behind by 4 points. So what has been the main problem?
Simple. Ancelotti's stubbornness.
Ancelotti has shown stubbornness with rotation. When
questioned on rotation he replied by saying "The BBC & Kroos are the
key in this system, anytime they are fit they will play". That statement
in itself has 2 implications. First and foremost, if those 4 players are out of
form, they will continue play. That is unreal, and as seen in recent very true.
You can understand the reason for not dropping Ronaldo & Benzema. The
former is arguably the best in the world, the latter the best for our system.
Bale on the other hand is different case. He has been badly out of form and
didn't register a single goal or assist in February. Dropping him would do him
and the team a whole lot of good, but Ancelotti is persistent. You can point to
the "political reasons" for Bale starting, but that wouldn't be a
problem considering Jese is the player most likely to replace Bale and he is
arguably the most loved player at Madrid. Ancelotti would argue he persisted
with Benzema last season with poor form and he came good. However, Benzema was
actually dropped in the first classico. Jese should be given a chance to play
often. Jese was brilliant before his injury last season and was even touted as
possibly getting a ticket to the world cup. Ancelotti however seems to not
trust him whether because of his injury or the way we're playing now is
unknown. Playing him regularly would improve him as a player and that would
help the club a great deal.
Tactical stubbornness is another fault in Ancelotti. Toni
Kroos has suffered from this obstinacy by Ancelotti. His form was brilliant in
the first half of the season, but has become visibly tired as he has played for
Bayern, Germany and Real all as a major component. He needs to be rested. There
are games were he could easily not have started and we would have been alright
with Illara. Asier Illaramendi was bought to play the Alonso role, but Kroos
plays there. Here again is another baffling thing. Ancelotti mentioned he won't
play Kroos further upfield because he is key to this system. This has killed
Madrid's creativity through the centre. Isco is the only sort of creativity in
the midfield. Why not push Illara/Silva to the deep lying midfielder position
and take Kroos to the more attacking position further up?
Isco, Marcelo and Ronaldo have a good understanding on the
left and are all better than the players on the right in terms of creativity.
James was the major creative force on that side and indeed in the whole team as
the stats show.
His absence means Madrid only create through the left and
intelligent coaches would just need to bombard their right hand side to make us
look ordinary, disjointed and dull. Hence what Simeone, Marcelino and Valvarde
have done, hence they've gotten results.
The heat maps above show Isco and Illara's movement respectively
during the last game. Clearly the right hand suffered. That has been the case
with Illara, Khedira & Lucas. A switch to a 4-4-2 would see drop Bale
deeper to the right taking Isco to left and 2 central strikers with Benzema
dropping deep would cause more trouble for opponents but Ancelotti is adamant
to such change. Sticking with this kind of 4-3-3 would only work by resting
Kroos for a while or giving him a mid-season break and returning him to replace
James for the period the Colombian is out injured time and increase our
creativity and add energy to a tired looking side.
The pictures above show were we clearly have the problems.
The defence and midfield have dropped deeper, then attack has pushed further
upfield. Hence shortage of balls to feed on for the forwards. Add that to the
lack of creativity on one side and we have a recipe for failure.
Tired body equals tired mind. It's not rocket science. Our
players seem to be confused as to what to do. As Ben Hayward of goal.com says.
This also further magnifies the points I raised in my previous article which you can see here: http://soccerbants.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/ancelotti-has-failed-this-team-real.html about
how we don't seem to have tactics on how to beat big teams who can curb the
individual brilliance of our players. Since that article was written we have
played 3 big games Atletico, Villareal and Bilbao and won none. It's funny how
Ancelotti is just taking note of this.
Going back to the issue of tired minds, Ancelotti mentioned
after the Atletico & Villareal game how the players lacked motivation.
Emilio Butragueno said we lacked inspiration after the Bilbao game. Going back
to Ancelotti's press conference after Alonso's departure, he said he couldn't
force a player who said he has no motivation to play for the biggest club in
the world to stay. With all this said, a simple observation will tell you
Ancelotti leaves the work of motivation to his players. Self-motivation is
good, but as a coach, it is his job to also prepare the players mentally.
Mourinho is a classic example, his players are always hungry. Simeone is
another. Ancelotti fails in this aspect.
Besides reinstating Casillas as number one at Madrid, another
decision I've been supportive of Ancelotti during the season is refusal to make
Varane one of the starting CBs. Pepe has been our best "defender" for
2 seasons running. Ramos has been shaky of late and some Madrid fans called for
him to be dropped, but from what i have noticed Varane is too fragile &
lacks total concentration to be a starter. Think back to the 4-0 defeat to
Atletico look at his positioning on all of the goals & how easily he was
bullied by the Atletico players even by Griezmann for the 3rd goal. For all his
height, Ramos is more effective aerially in defending and attacking than
the french man. . Ramos is a leader and a beast. His passion and motivation
cannot be replaced. Varane will learn alot from Ramos and Pepe.
The return of Ramos, Modric and James would turn results
around and bring back the class of the 22-match winning streak. Ancelotti knows
he has no margin for error now and to his credit he hasn't used the "we
have players out injured" excuse like some other coaches would. Those 3
players missing are players who would walk into most teams & are also from
all areas of the pitch and whether you put it down to pride preventing him from
accepting their absences as the reason for our loss of form or not, he's doing
the right thing. In Ancelotti's defence a better bench would have helped the
situation but we don't have that. 3-4 quality players need to be added to the
squad especially in attack. We can't depend on the BBC all the time as this
period is proving.
Things would change soon, but Ancelotti has to change his
stubborn ways to help this team in difficult times such as this or else, a
beautiful project and season would have been wasted.
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