Are the young fullbacks offering Real Madrid enough in the attack?
Ferland Mendy is one of the best defensive fullbacks you’ll find on this planet, and he did not put a foot wrong on that end of the pitch against Levante. But on the other side of the coin, it honestly felt like he didn’t put a foot right offensively either.
So far this season, Mendy has zero goal contributions, and fans have grown frustrated with both the sideways nature of his passing and his inability to deliver accurate crosses.
For me, there were two more issues in this Levante matchup. It’s easy to take Marcelo for granted, but watching Mendy, he misses so many switches of play on the other side of the field. It’s like he’s not even aware he can switch the ball to the right side after Real have made a natural overload. The second issue was that he often stood in Hazard’s way instead of making himself an actual outlet who could then make his own progressive pass.
Alvaro Odriozola was even worse, honestly, because at least Mendy was trying and wasn’t a liability defensively. Odriozola was awful again on defense, and instead of making up for it on the offensive end, he had so many poor giveaways and inaccurate crosses. At this point, it’s hard to see Odriozola having much of a future at Real Madrid, even though he has the traits to play well for a smaller club.