Daizen Maeda

Always good to have a player that is built upon pace and it’s something the team has lacked for the longest time

 

Yes I did see that last weekend, he ran the boy into the ground…..not in a footballing sense. However we had no depth on the bench to change things.

 

Samaras was deceptively fast. He had a long stride and glided past players. There was a stand out goal where he knocked the ball past the player and side footed the ball into the net.

 

didnt think he was that bad.. he probably did as much as Palma on the opposite side.

That being said, most of the play came down the left side and he suffered when Johnstone went off. I thought Ralston was particularly poor on the ball when he came on, looked slow and cumbersome.

 

Aye I wasnt referring to his speed. Just that he was missing something from being a consistent top level player.

 

I think he offered less than Palma, who was also poor. Bad day at the office for the team as a whole. Very passive

 

I think he did a lot more running, he just didnt see as much of the ball down his side. He always offered the forward runs off the ball and almost scored for a great save by Marshall. Just wasnt his day.

 

I always remember an ex player or a pundit, I think it was Hartson actually in a paper column describing Samaras as “Zlatan with his wires crossed”.

Which was pretty accurate, he had everything you needed in a player physically and footballing wise had ability, it just very rarely all came together. Basically his football intelligence was sorely lacking.

 

100% this. Red card for a block challenge. Games dead if that's the case.

The reaction from Atletico as well. Daizen was a threat to them. They knew. Doubling up. They seized their opportunity on * gamesmanship and theat * of a ref was too happy to oblige.

 

Aletico scared of him, did everything to get him that red...

* criminal decision.

 

He was causing them all sorts of problems too. Scandalous decision.

 

It was a yellow and the VAR replay being paused made it look way worse. Thought it was a shocker of a decision.

 

Genuinely the worst decision I've seen go against us, since the weekend.

 

Feel for the guy. Terrible decision and its also ended his CL participation for the season.

 

Not 5 mins after he was sent off, a Madrid player went in studs up on Kyogo and it wasn't even looked at. Maybe if Kyogo had rolled around like a * and BR had run on flapping like a * it might have been.

 

I've watched this again and again. I think I can say that I'm not usually one with green-tinted specs when it comes to decisions, but I really can't see that as a red card. Not even in Europe. In the SPL it's not even a yellow.

 

He's a huge loss. One of our best players in the CL.