Real Madrid started off great against Marseille until they didn’t. As the game went on, it began slipping out of Madrid’s control, and the team clearly underperformed. There were several reasons for that: a sloppy defense to begin with, and a senseless attacking unit that struggled hard to score but could not do much without a penalty.
As the minutes ticked by, Marseille started to figure out Los Blancos’ style and began beating it. And Xabi Alonso’s team had little idea how to counter. Some fans on Reddit scapegoated Arda Güler for the average performance tonight. But the reality is far from it, slightly antithetical even.
A fan said, “Been saying this for some time, Arda is very good, he truly is, but should not start. Bellingham when ready and Franco should be starting. He will be a super sub, but has no consistency in his play as of yet.”
I really don’t think that is anywhere near the truth. In fact, Güler was one of the best players on the pitch tonight. He may have looked sloppy, and that is a fair critique of the 20-year-old, but calling out false inconsistency is just lazy. It has no substance at all.
Real Madrid fans just picked the wrong scapegoat
The issue in tonight’s game lies in the larger problem still lingering in the system. The system has more motion than direction. It presses well, steals the ball, and creates, but the end product seems to vanish there. Goals are a rarity on some nights and a feast on others. That is the real inconsistency worth talking about.
Güler was fairly decent tonight. He linked well, and even though he looked caught up in his head about decisions he should have taken earlier, he did his part. For the way the game ended, the defense and the attack are far more to blame. The defense for how they allowed Marseille to toy with them, especially in the second half, and the attack for all the flair but no goals from open play.
Güler had a 92 percent passing accuracy, which is impressive for a player scapegoated and pushed toward the bench. One must remember last season, when Madrid were a completely different side once Carlo Ancelotti started giving the Turk minutes in the dying months of the campaign. Nothing could be salvaged, but it gave a glimpse of a missed opportunity.
As for the Bellingham argument, I don’t buy the false dichotomy. It’s never an A or B question but an A and B solution. Güler and Bellingham are different, yet both explosive, and they can work together. They are like Lego blocks, one’s strength filling another’s weakness. The logic behind that argument just doesn’t hold.
Given how the team played in what was supposed to be an easy win, there are far better and more logical complaints than blaming Arda Güler, who was only half as poor as most of the others.