Real Madrid vs Manchester City: The Starting 11

Before going into the next Match I will rate the performance of players in the last game vs Levante.

1. Benzema: 3/10, Only misses and bad finishes, final third game play missing.
2. Hazard: 4/10, created a few chances, missed a sure 1 on 1 chance, got injured again
3. Isco: 5/10, too much 1-2 passes and final third game play missing, need to release quicker. Good distribution outside the box.
4. Modric: 7/10, did his bit, created ample chances, could have pressed better for the goal, but was surely a wonder strike 
5. Casemiro: 8/10, did all he was supposed to do, took a yellow when required, made his presence felt in the attack as well, could have headed it home but missed.
6. Kroos: 6/10, good first half, lacked the precision in the second half and after the goal seemed lost. Seemed he was out of gas.
7. Marcelo: 7/10, did very well to be honest, some defensive lapses were there but with the amount of offensive positioning it is expected. Need to get better in crossing than this but hardly any forward is present for the crosses.
8. Ramos: 6/10, was below par, with hardly any pressure he was committing fouls and leading to errors. Seemed lack of communication on occasions.
9. Varane: 7/10, could have maintained the line to mark for offside in the winning goal. Apart from that did very well defensively.
10. Carvajal: 7/10, defensively good, could do more with support up front, chemistry missing going forward. Crosses were landing in no man's land or intercepted.
11. Courtois: 7/10, overall good performance except the goal, could have tried at least, he misjudged it seems for letting it go into the goal.
12. Valverde: 7/10, he tried mobilizing the team to return to the game but too late to get any impact.
13. Vinicius: 8/10, seemed much better than Hazard, should have given more time to create more impact.
14. Lucas Vazquez: 5/10, came late but was only caught napping in both attack and while trying to win the ball back.
15. ZZ: 6/10, Kept Benzema for full 90 mins, no real change to influence the game, especially in the attack even when things were not working well. Second half was really poor except for Vinicius trying to create some chances.

The upcoming match is against Manchester City at home in the first leg of round of 16 of Champions league. After the bad loss in La liga and losing 5 point of the possible 6 in the last week, Madrid is entering the crucial phase in the worst form of the season. Now they are 2 points behind the leaders Barcelona in La liga. Madrid needs to revive and can not take any risks this time.

Looking at the 

Injury list:

1. Asensio
2. Mariano
3. Bale

Only Asensio is injured. And he has not been practicing with the team. He has started individual workouts and shooting now. We hope his recovery is faster and soon he starts playing with the team.

Suspended:

1. None

Just recovered:

1. None

Practiced:

Asensio is on his recovery process.

Skipped Practice:

None

Coach Comments:

• We did all things right but could not do the most important thing of scoring.

Other Comments:

• ZZ is now focusing on the next games and is the right thing to do. 

Squad Updates:

This is a crucial game for the Champions league title being a knock-out game, with nothing to spare this should be taken with all seriousness.

In the goal Courtois will start, he was not great last game but he did not commit many errors except the one leading to the goal. Though he had few bad games in the recent past, things can only get better for Courtois and Real Madrid from here. 

Ramos and Varane will start as the center backs. Mendy will start on the left and will provide better defensive option and Carvajal will start on the right. So Mendy, Ramos, Varane and Carvajal should start. Defence has been in good form with Mendy but occasional switching off has led to several goals and they should try to avoid any errors leading to such goals.

All the five mid-fielders are available but it's been a poor outing in the past few games in terms of controlling the game. It is a very difficult decision for ZZ whom to pick. There has been lack of any consistency in the last few games but they have been creating several chances. But taking the past game's rigor and current fitness level into considerations it is going to be Valverde, Casemiro and Kroos in the middle. Modric and Isco will be on the bench.

As Asensio and Hazard have been injured, Vinicius will start on the left and Bale will start on the right. Vinicius, Benzema, and Bale will start. And Jovic,  and Rodrygo should be on the bench. 

So the formation would be 4 3 3 after failing to capitalize the 4 4 2 in the past games.

So the final starting 11 will be: