Real Madrid may not even challenge for the title let alone win it as a shock 2-0 defeat at home to Real Sociedad on Sunday left them even further adrift in La Liga.
Atletico Madrid and Sevilla each gained on the European champions, despite playing out a 1-1 draw against each other while Barcelona headed into the weekend seven points clear.
Madrid were reduced to 10 men in the second half after Lucas Vazquez was shown a second yellow card but by then they already trailed to Willian Jose’s early penalty.
Ruben Pardo wrapped up a brilliant victory for La Real, who had beaten Madrid only once in their last 22 meetings. This was their first victory at Santiago Bernabeu since 2004.
Naturally a myriad of talking points emerged from the clash, and here are three of the biggest.
REAL’S PROBLEMS ARE NOT NEW
Real Madrid boss Santiago Solari
In recent seasons, Madrid have been like a bad bit of DIY.
There are cracks all over the walls but instead of getting the right men in to fix the place up, president Florentino Perez has hung up images of Cristiano Ronaldo to conceal the big issues.
Take him out of picture, and the scene is decidedly disturbing. But the problems are not new, they have always been there.
They remain fragile to counter-attacks, resort to cross-and-hope tactics when their one-dimensional attack fails, have still not adequately found a replacement/competition for Karim Benzema or even corrected Marcelo’s pathetically negligent defensive transitions.
None of these problems have emerged this season. It’s a copy and paste of previous campaigns and it is no wonder Zinedine Zidane left the club when he did on the back of his successes in the Champions League.
In a knockout format, Madrid, largely through Ronaldo, had sufficient quality to overpower teams. But across an entire season, those masked problems will always surface.
You can change the coach but the problems will continue to repeat until the squad is sufficiently replenished.
These problems are Perez’s fault. He has dined off their recent success and now left the team to starve.
They are out of top four, well out of the title race and this season is a write off.
DEPENDENCE ON VINICIUS IS EMBARRASSING
Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinicius Jr
The success of the individual points to the problems of the collective.
Vinicius Jr. rightly started his first La Liga game of the campaign, yet his impressive emergence has highlighted the current appalling state of Los Blancos.
This is not meant as a criticism of the Brazilian forward, quite the opposite, but it is damning indictment of the rest of Real’s attacking unit that they relied so heavily on him against Sociedad.
With Ronaldo gone, this was billed as a season in which Gareth Bale, and in particular Isco, would rise up and take responsibility.
In Sunday’s defeat, Bale was injured, Isco was benched while Vinicius – an inexperienced, untested and raw teenager – was left to carry their threat practically on his own.
No Real player shot more (six), found the target more (three) or dribbled more (six). His 68 touches was the most of any Real attacker and his three key passes was third most.
The 18-year-old was battered the entire game – he should actually have been awarded a penalty when Geronimo Rulli quite clearly tripped the man without touching the ball – and looked exhausted heading into the final 15 minutes.
Yet, he remained their sole source of attacking endeavour and genuine pace. It’s embarrassing on the pitch and in the boardroom that this great and elite club has been left in this sorry state.
SPARSE CROWD
Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos in front of empty seats
Manchester United’s attendances this season began to visibly drop when they were at the height of their miserable run of form under Jose Mourinho.
If you want a tangible indication of how the mighty have fallen, it is when their own fans decided to turn away.
The same is now happening at Real Madrid who have now seemingly replaced the Red Devils as Europe’s biggest disaster club this season.
Indeed, the Bernabeu was far from full against Sociedad and you can sense their apathy through the silence rather than the vitriol, a bizarre situation when you consider the Madridistas’ passion – sometimes for good and bad.
When even the supporter’s begin to lose interest, you know the situation is pretty dire.
