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Jaime wrote:Torrente wrote:Also, predictably very little noise has been made about Arbeloa's horror show against Pato. If that had been Marcelo we would have had a mountain of editorials about how Marcelo can't defend. But last night Pato went past Arbeloa as much as he felt like it, and Arbeloa was very lucky that none of those occasions resulted in a goal.
The only time he was badly beaten was on the goal that was disallowed. Anyone can get beat in a 1 v 1 situation against a good player like Pato but I don't recall Pato ever being completely unmarked as he was in the first game against Milan. And this is Marcelo's biggest flaw. In 1 v 1 defending he does ok but he cannot man mark to save his life.
But getting dribbled so easily by a talented player is just as bad as being bad at man-marking IMO. This is basically why Marcelo got slaughtered after the Sevilla game since Navas went passed him time and time again.
And there were certainly more times than the Pato goal when Arbeloa was skinned. I remember a counter-attack where Seedorf gave a pass to Pato in the first half and he dribbled Arbeloa very easily without even being on the run (I think Pepe ended up blocking Pato's pass to the penalty spot), as well as 1 or 2 more occasions in the second half where Albiol had to make a last-ditch tackle to cover for him. So basically, Pato raped Arbeloa a hell of a lot worse than he did Marcelo in the Bernabeu, yet somehow Marcelo gets slaughtered after the first game while no criticism went Arbeloa's way this time.
I'm not saying Arbeloa is a bad defender, just wanted to point out a lot of the hypocrisy in the press, where not only was Arbeloa not criticized, but he was actually praised for his performance. Ironically, I think only Goal.com was the only news source I saw that gave Arbeloa a low rating for his performance.
