Welcome to The Daily Merengue — a place where you can feel free to discuss all things football. Do not be alarmed by the overt RMCF bias. It’s in the name!
Shoutout to the Mods who do a fantastic job, Valyrian Steel, Ezek XI, KungFuZizou, NeRObutBlanco, Felipejack, and Juninho.
Writer’s Prelude. The second part of the 3 DT series of Jose Juninho’s Too Early Thoughts
Jose Juninho — Defense Edition
“You think two beautiful passes are enough. You think you’re so good that 50% is enough.” — Jose Mourinho during a HT row with Mesuit Ozil
(extract from Ozil’s book)
Disclaimer. Similar to yesterday, I have a few early disclaimers. The first like yesterday is none of what I say / or you say / or even Kiyan says [let’s see if this leads to any comments!!] about this team matters as it’s Sept 2nd 2026. The real time to judge this team will be months from now so let’s all try to remain as patient as possible for this moment.
The second disclaimer which I may ultimately delete but I’m saying now is that I’m going to separate Arda v. Jude from this section is I’m going to discuss Arda v Jude in their own section. Hopefully, characters permitting, we can take a better opportunity to really focus on the construction of our entire midfield rather than who should be our #10 but I understand that it’s hard to have a discussion about the middle of the pitch without the two. Anyway…let’s jump into this.
A Quick Aside: Transfer Window. A super brief aside but somewhat symbolic of a midfield discussion, the transfer window has practically closed (hasn’t officially as of writing) and Real Madrid (a club that desperately needed new faces in the midfield) has signed Bernardo Silva…and that’s it….
And it isn’t because of a lack of available funds (*cough Diomande*) just in my opinion willingness, as well as a poor culture or prerogative towards sales. We are incredibly poor at selling players and it’s likely because of vastly bloated contracts but that’s another discussion. I can dive into this more fully later but I’ll give our Transfer Window a solid: 6.5-7/10 rating. We addressed our defensive concerns and plugged a few holes in our forward line with more depth BUT our greatest concern has barely been addressed.
The Midfield. Let’s start my thoughts on a positive spin. Defensively, I actually feel pretty good about our midfield. Although it is supremely likely that I’ll feel a bit differently as our opposition gets trickier, especially against a well-coached side like Betis, I relatively don’t mind what I’ve seen from our midfield. Fede in a more defensive role has been resolute in transition using his athletic gifts from God to sweep up the majority of transition breaks. If there’s one thing Fede can do remarkably well it’s cover vast amounts of space in a short time and that has been evident throughout this current set-up. In instances where I’ll admit Tchouameni likely wouldn’t catch up, Fede is there and that will be a necessary facet for a team that plays quite direct and likely will lose possession.
However, I’ll admit that I’m a bit concerned about Fede Valverde in settled possession stints. Possibly due to his pace, he sometimes feels positionally aloof (note: I have the same feeling about Camavinga but he loses focus much more frequently than Fede). If we turn back to the Espanyol goal, Fede simply doesn’t track his runner. He motions to Carreras but if Fede had properly scanned the situation, he should have recognized that Carreras wasn’t actually in a position to track said runner and Fede primarily was just defending uninhabited space. The trend is that Mourinho’s Madrid will defend deeper and structurally more rigid than before (with a less emphasis on possession) so this will need to be something resolved quite quickly.
Just to also get this other midfielder who’s made various cameos out of the way — Camavinga has put in some good performances overall but still happens to lose focus on not only passes but defensively. Similar to my plea to Fede, Cama will need to resolve this quickly if he wants to earn a place in our squad.
But nevertheless, I actually feel good about this team’s overall defensive commitment and I only expect it to improve once Tchouameni is back in fold. From what I can tell, Bernardo Silva puts in a good 60 min shift so as long as his legs hold up we shouldn’t concede too many opportunities but of course this will take more than just the midfield (LOOKING AT YOU DIOMANDE / VINI / KYKY / JUDE)
I’m still significantly concerned about our build-up play. More alarming, but really shouldn’t be at all because this is still the same cast of characters — my faith in our midfield to actually hold onto the ball under pressure is extremely low. The beginning of the Malaga game is by far the best example where the players simply couldn’t find proper passes to link the defense to the forward line forcing Rudiger and at times Tibo to play a speculative long ball to Vini / Kylian in hopes that Jude or someone won the loose ball on the bounce. Malaga (until Jude’s incredible individual goal) earnestly dominated a fair portion of the early game with their diamond press that we simply didn’t have enough midfield bodies nor off ball movement to break. Camavinga often received the ball but was too slow in his decision making to make a vertical pass. Fede his partner in crime often was static and to some extent just hid from the ball and passing lanes (something Tchou frequently does too). And then we can have a larger discussion about how our forwards didn’t necessarily drop to receive swift 1-2s.
Idk MM — part of me wants to excuse this because yes the Malaga line-up was literally last year’s team + Cucurella. However, part of me also completely understands that this is likely what will occur throughout this season because Bernado Silva is like 33+ and Arda Guler is just not going to start every game especially once the political and financial pressure to play Diomande grows. This will likely be a reoccurring theme through the season so I’m not going to waste the entire character count here but it surely is something that we will need to fix ASAP. And sadly, I’m not entirely sure that there is a reasonable solution. Thiago Pitarch / Sergio Martinez could be introduced to assist Bernardo in that role but these are incredibly raw and young talents which we likely don’t have the time nor patience to develop. Transitioning Arda Guler to the pivot is a popular discussion point but it doesn’t appear to match with what Mourinho currently wants from Arda. Additionally, I think there are valuable questions regarding whether Arda is physically or mentally prepared to play a more defensive facing role. Personally, I think DLP Arda could work in a more possession focused team but I’m wary about him playing that role when we play this direct and vertically. Arda trying to cover space would be a sight to watch lol. Jude would be an easy answer but it looks like Mou + Jude have a pact to only play him as a 10 and at the moment Mourinho seems focused on ensuring the stars are happy and bought into what he’s trying to build. So yes — the storm is coming, it’ll be fascinating to see if or how we fix it.
The 10. So for this portion, I’m not really going to join into the debate of who should be our 10. I don’t find it valuable because politically, financially, marketing wise, and by all accounts this has been decided — SPOILER it’s Jude Bellingham. If we want to discuss who would better serve the entire team in that role, yes you could make a case for Arda (and I may even lean there) but as of Sept 2026 you’d just be screaming into a void that doesn’t really care. Jude will be our 10 until further notice. Jude is a much better overall player than Arda. Jude is the 2nd face of the team. YES, JUDE IS THE SECOND FACE OF THE TEAM. (Note: Being the face of a team is a marketing term not some convoluted fan “omg you’re the 2nd best player” this is pure marketing mechanics. So look at the marketing materials and don’t just sleep on the EA FC 27 cover featuring both of our players in full Madrid kits). So that convo is over.
Now knowing Jude is the 10, we will have to accept that he will score sometimes spectacular goals but he may hurt our build up. Jude positionally is a 10 but takes on the responsibilities of a second striker who occasionally is an 8. He is not a connecting piece in the midfield position and he doesn’t spark our offensive excursions through dedicated passing vision. His passing has improved or at least appears to early season so kudos there but it wasn’t lost on me that against Malaga when Silva and Arda were no where to be found, we often couldn’t string passes from our own third. This is just the cost of doing business at this point as England often went through a similar issue throughout the World Cup.
Still, this is often a better issue to have than to not. We can again mechanically work against this by featuring Arda on the psuedo-RW/RM role where he has the freedom to do what he does best and interchange with Jude but then be prepared to see more Dumfries. Potentially Diomande could help facilitate these moments with his defensive workmate and his natural tendency in our own third to connect via quick passes BUT I’m not sure we’ve all collectively seen enough from Yan to depend on that.
Regarding Arda, it’ll just be interesting to see how he evolves this season. Arda has very much made a stamp and impression on all fans / board / Mourinho but it’s unclear of how long this can be sustained next to a behemoth like Jude Bellingham. I’m extremely interested to see what happens next summer when Arda (especially if he isn’t afforded a true starting role) begins contract extension discussions with Real (Arda’s contract expires in 2029 alongside Jude). It’ll be additionally interesting as Real still do have a buyback clause (or at least 50% rights) to Nico Paz who also exists in a similar position to Arda. Honestly, I don’t really know what the solution is here. Arda at RW / RM is valuable and can work but a bit of me feels like it’s a long-term waste of his abilities and that he is better suited for a 10 role. Additionally, Arda gets pretty exhausted by the 55th min trying to defend the channels plus start build-up play plus create chances. Similar to complaints about Jude being asked to do too much in previous years, Arda to a different extent is also asked to do far too much. In a perfect world, Arda and Jude could be interchangeable 8s with a single pivot and wingers who actually defended their respective channels but I don’t see that future coming as long as both Kylian and Vini wear the Real Madrid kit so that’s that. Who knows?
As far as the Arda v Jude debate…the early games likely has created more questions than answers. Both the hope would be that both can play together.
Anyway tomorrow we’ll talk about the forwards.
Cheers,
J
