winning at the weekend once again in pressing winning 3-0 away against alavez and how Robert levandowski has been reinvented once again under hany flick chavy wanted him out in the summer if he was still in charge chavy goes levandowski now has found that sort of form where he was so great of course under flick at B Bayern Munich and what's interesting when you take a look at these goals niden that we saw levandowski scoring he's on your shoulder as a center back on every single one his timing is absolutely perfect when it comes to staying
on side I'm just wondering as a Defender who does that remind you of that you came up against and how do you try and combat it um in terms of people that it reminds me of it reminds me of Sergio Aguero the amount of times when you see that one minute people believe they have him the next minute he's got to tap in at the far post for example and these are both prolific goal scorers and their linkup play you know we can say it's good but it's their ability to find Space when it matters
most so because as a Defender at some stage you have to look elsewhere you have to have a focus on the ball try and figure out what you're going to do and you need the support of those around you but levandowski is one of the best to do it you know Pini as well in terms of the way that he moved Aguero and some of the best goal scorers that we've seen in our lifetimes they're all magnificent at it their ability to sense the right time to make the run the speed to make it the
positions to put themselves into I think at times defending it's um it's a thankless task because you can make something as hard as you can but the best will always find a way and levandowski certainly is one of those and let's not forget Mario leandos at 36 years of age is still torturing Defenders as he has done all of his career how do you try and deal with it cuz they know they know it's going to happen they're aware of what he does but don't seem to be able to stop it yeah but that's that's
the hardest part he's the the player that when you think you got him that sometimes he gets to life you know it's like you know you close to him you think oh today I'm having a great game and then after 20 minutes boom it's a goal and I think the the thing with him with with with um with a player like him um first of all he likes competition in the sense of like when people have their doubts he will turn up and and you know score for you but just his mindset of thinking Strikers
get one or two opportunities and they got to be the fastest thinkers on the whole field and he has some thinking oh my God those goals quickly comfortable the touches and the way he moved the ball really quickly it makes so much sense but rava is the key I said it last time raia is the key for him and gives him more time and space to run into the right directions absolutely Rafia and rowski have built this incredible bond that we've seen this season Stevie from a coaching point of view how do you get your
Defenders to stop leandi well you got to start in the middle of the park because you got to stop the service right if you stop the service then you're limiting the opportunities that people that leowski get and the other key is get outside the box don't be in the Box don't don't go too deep in the Box because this guy comes alive in the Penalty Box he's got an instinct he's got a desire he knows his way around it so what you mean by that just explain that a little bit more well don't don't drop
inside your Penalty Box i' say as a Defender try and try and stay outside the Penalty Box because at the very least if he gets it outside the box he's probably going to have to have more than one touch because in the Penalty Box he only needs one yeah so at least you give yourself an opportunity to try and get close to him to try and block it to try and stop him in some way cuz if you if you go deep in the Box well you just you lose them for the start and then
all you'll doing picking the ball at the back of the net he too good the the contrast of Lewandowski between this season and last season I think is best illustrated by the third goal against alavez we were never asking leandi to go and make Runs Out in what areas and get out in the channel getting behind but what we were asking of leandi last season that it wasn't happen regularly whatever the the reasons may have been whether it was lack of confidence lack of Fitness he didn't feel like he was wanted or loved by the
manager who knows what the reasons were but we were not seeing the little diagonal movements yeah from the top of the 18 yard box into the 18 Yard Box off of the shoulder of the defender that you were just mentioning that little movement that re the reading of the timing of the space that's where the Instinct kicks in the moment that the attacking player receives the ball he's already thought where his move is going to be and because of his movement he now demands the ball to be played into a certain space which makes that
next ball coming in and this third goal West fromed Garcia the pass it it paints a very clear picture for you he's making the move for you you just have to SP hit that splitting pass and he's going to be in there and to the point that Stevie was making is that most of his goal Are One Touch yes but because he's willing to make those movements that he wasn't making last season look the truth of the matter is that shaby was on the verge of leaving leowski for dead and and that was the rhetoric
almost as if this guy don't and not just shaby a lot of the Barcelona fans as well as the season was coming to an end last year every time he touched the ball and lost the ball he was one of the four guys was so was Rafa by the way yes now Rafa is wearing a captain arm band so let's not let's not get crazy and say we knew this all along a lot of the Barcelona fans were saying leand we're done with this guy and Rafa if you can just move out of the way
so that niiko Williams can come to this team that was part of the rhetoric now both of these guys are delivering at a high level and what a pise is how well they're doing of course is when you take a look at La Liga at Table Three Points clear of Real Madrid having just lost that one game against USA sooner of course as we go into the international break for Real Madrid it was a good win against vial but obviously it came at a cost we saw venicius Jr he will miss international break because of
a neck injury but of course more importantly Danny caraja out for the season with an ACL injury as you welcome in Julian Lon Jules I supposed the obvious question is how much will Real Madrid look to replace caraja in January or will they try and make do with the likes of Lucas Vasquez I think they will they will make D for now certainly with Lucas Vasquez I think ad mil can play a right back F meni can play a right back he even played right back for France a couple of times and then you can
have Frank Garcia as your left back or maybe even kavinga as your left back so you've got other options really that are not ideal but you've got other option I think janary could not come soon enough though for real Madrid to replace kajal I mean to to just sign a Defender may be a bit versatile that can play Maybe Center half and right back as well or just a pure right back it's six years I think since Real Madrid last signed a player in January they never signed anyone in janary ever but I think this
time the urgency is there I remember when they signed Julian fa in January when I was there George your fellow Countryman who was famous for falling asleep on the bench that's what he did during his long from West Ham meanwhile what the heck is going on with kilan mbappe jwes this of course a player who is not going to represent France in this International break citing that he was injured but of course started in the of came on in the Champions League and then started at the weekend against viale yeah this is a another massive
story in France developing every day uh because now everybody's obviously giving their Thor ex players pundits ex International ex- Captain fans everything you want basically on Thursday morning Friday Wednesday night after the Le Real Madrid game did desan spoke to K mbappe about his Fitness and how he felt mbappe uh said that he still needed some more treatment that he was not fit not fully fit that he did play 25 minutes against Le but that he didn't feel right so they say Okay so going to leave you home I'm not going to call you back
on Thursday morning was the the announcement of the squad he said I'm not going to call you up for the national team you can stay in Madrid rest and have all the treatment you want and get fit again uh desan didn't know that two days later k mbapp would start for Real Madrid play 70 minutes against V adnab and obviously not showing up on Monday morning at CL Fontan with the national team so you can imagine back home where we thought mbappe would was injured that's why he was not called up by desan for France
and that suddenly there was clear no injuries otherwise he wouldn't have been able to play against vill so Desa today try to minimize everything by saying listen clubs are paying for the players it's normal that clubs have in a Way the final say that players have to think about their Club first maybe before the national team try to minimize it I think he made it worse because now everybody's talking again about the old debate about Club V country remember arson Wenger Etc all of that very much now on and people are saying that kilan basically
does what he wants and what he wishes if he doesn't fancy going with the national team he says he's injured he's not actually injured he plays with Real Madrid and then still stays at home so yeah it's a massive massive controversy right now my question to you Joes was going to be how did he think he was going to get away with it but clearly he doesn't care I don't know I I can't believe that the French national team captain and arguably the best player in the world does not care about his country I don't
think that's true what he doesn't care about is is people talking about him with this in this narrative basically saying look he's choosing at the moment Real Madrid over France it seems a very strange thing to tackle when it wasn't necessarily something that need to be public just after the game on Saturday just say look I can't make it I've picked up a nog yeah I think there was different there certainly other ways to do it and we've seen in the last few days few hours loads of players pulling out of the national team you
know garnacho I mean Venus milit some are probably injured Harvest garnacho some I think have little injuries mazra is another one I'm not sure if all of them are properly injured for the long term for example so we've seen it before the boys have done it this there times where if you're not 100% a hectic Time of the Season maybe you feel like you know what it's better for me if I don't go with the national team and stay and have the treatment and the rehab or training with my club what I I don't know
I think there was definitely a better way for for mbappe and deson to do it because DES in a way call him up and then you know that on Sunday he can say actually I don't feel right coach I'm not going to come and you got blame for this you got I know you've got your issues with Des but you got blame him for this no but I think the communication was wrong I mean clearly Dan somebody either kilan said to desan listen I'm not fit I can't play don't call me up and then he
he did DH on dirty then by playing against V for 17 minutes right it's either that or deson just said listen I know you're not fully Fair 100% fair so stay with Real Madrid I don't know if deson knew about the vill real game or not but then maybe in des's communication he didn't he didn't express it in the right way because he really felt the way deson said it he felt like listen mbappe can't play football right now he's injured he can't play so imagine the surprise then to see him two days later playing
170 minutes in La Liga [Music]
