How do we support Vinicius Junior when he struggles?
Vinicius Junior was poor on Tuesday night. There is no way around it. He was the worst player on the pitch for either team, to be quite frank, and his poor performance came after he was one of the only players who didn’t look good in El Clasico.
It’s striking to see how Vini’s performances have fallen in the last couple of games, because he was one of Real Madrid’s top players before the Barcelona match.
Vinicius made poor decisions, missed easy chances, and didn’t look like his usual self on the ball in terms of energy and skill. And what makes it so weird to see Vinicius slide is that he’s normally consistent. In 2019-2020, he didn’t have any truly bad games. Sure, he had games when he was mediocre, but, for the most part, he was consistently creating chances and starting attacks.
Something is up, and Zinedine Zidane needs to be the one to step in and see what’s going on. He needs to do a better job tactically with Vinicius, too. Because I’ve noticed that Vini either doesn’t have space when he’s wide or isn’t being asked to drop to pick up the ball in central areas. Instead, he’s often too high up the pitch, and he’s not usually going to be a threat in the box on lofted passes like Karim Benzema would be.
The season is young, and Vinicius is literally young. So I think as fans, it is best to take two bad games in their proper context. They are just two games, nothing more. It is up to the manager to prevent this from becoming a trend by doing his best to put his player in a position to excel.