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The YIPS
Real Madrid have struggled to win big games since the start of Ancelotti’s last season. This has continued under Xabi Alonso who himself being a relatively young manager has yet to get into the swing of things. Winning is a habit.
Winning when it matters is a necessary habit at Real Madrid. We are learning about Xabi as he is also learning about managing at this level. Real Madrid is not just a top flight team with dreams of winning trophies. It is the pinnacle of football. The expectations are unreasonable and rightly so. You are expected to win because you’re Real Madrid. The name carries that much weight.
Xabi Alonso needs time. I do not know how much time. It could be a year or two. I still believe that we have to wait until January or February to really see what they’ve been working towards. It won’t perfect but it will be much clearer. While the derbi humiliation at the hands of the mattress makers who have been poor this season to say the least…will cut really deep. We have to remember what the point of Xabi Alonso replacing Carlo was. It was for significant changes in how we play, how we use the squad, how we deal with young players etc. This is a project which requires patience.
The boys have the YIPS. They can’t roll over a big side. It’s attitude and application, it’s belief, desire. This is not to say the players go out there to lose when it’s big game but that they’re clearly not in the right place mentally. Big games are about attitude more than form. Derbies are difficult games even when there is a significant gap in the quality of the two sides. The pressure is now on for the El Clasico game and if that goes south…the grumblings will get louder. We have Liverpool after El Clasico and must win one of those two games to break this win-less streak in big games.
What We Learned
The team has a great dressing room atmosphere. In fact, it might be too nice in that dressing room. There’s a lack of genuine seriousness about this group. They are undeniably talented despite all the over the top reactions about the players being overrated. However, the application and desire seems to be on the softer side. This is baffling because Courtois, Vini, Rodrygo, Fede, Dani, Ceballos are players who have seen the really bad times and went on to win again. If the team looks like it lacks leaders it’s because those captains are not behaving in the way they should. Kylian can be forgiven. He’s new. He hasn’t earned his stripes at the club. I, for one do not expect him to be the main leader. That’s for Dani, Fede and Vini. They were there when days were dark. They need to do better.
The team was unable to defend crosses. Unable to stop crosses. Unable to track Sorloth. No disrespect to Sorloth. He enjoys playing against Real Madrid and nobody seemed prepared for him. Nobody seemed to know how Atletico plays. They’re a second-ball team who rely on set-pieces and long balls. Once they start playing through you, you’re just terrible. We looked unprepared for the game and what’s worse the inability to react after going up 2-1 was really worrying. We can always score goals, clearly that should not have caused the team to lose sight of the issues off the ball.
Defending
The players were poor individually and collectively. The back 4 seemed to not recognise the midfield or the opposition at times. It was too easy for Atletico to create chances. Dean Huijsen is still a wonderfully talented Centre-Back. He has to learn how to defend when exposed 1v1. He has been protected far too much and needs to learn how to make these decisions in order to improve. Carreras just let Sorloth go and Huijsen got caught under the ball for Atletico’s second goal. The first goal might even be worse as nobody challenged Le Normand at all. It was just too poor. There was no fight. We do not need to sign new players. Just develop the ones we have. Surely we’ve not returned to the myopia of the past so quickly.
Midfield
The most ardent Atletico Madrid fan does not believe they have better midfielders than us. And yet, if nobody knew anything about football, they would be justified to believe we have terrible players in comparison. Outside of Arda Guler who is made of magic this season, the rest were awful. They simply had no idea what they were doing. They could not keep the ball, they could not win it back, they could not stop Atletico playing. One must give credit to Simeone. He knew how to get his team ready for the derbi and how to get at this Real Madrid side.
Attack
The attack was quiet. Apart from the goals there was very little of note which occured in the final 3rd for Real Madrid. It was dreadful in the second half. The team seemed to go from bad to worse. That was not a derbi performance from Real Madrid. They did not play like a team that wants to beat a rival. It looked like pre-season friendly settings.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The team has played games this season. This was the first loss of the season. We still have more than 30 games to play in La Liga alone. We have seen improvements in how the team plays. We want to see those improvements in the big games. But we need to be patient. Xabi is bringing something the players are not used to. He asking them to think about the game in a different way. It takes time. It is my view that we wait until the end of January before we can really say we’ve seen Xabi-ball and whether or not it’s the way forward. There are still many tests to come before then. The supercopa will be one of them. While that is not a serious competition, it will be serious this season because we have to beat Barcelona and Atletico. It is embarrassing to say but that’s the low bar we need to clear before we can beat our chest about taking on the rest of the world. The loss was terrible but let us not toss the baby with the bathwater. We still have great players and a very talented manager.
