A post-debacle, level-headed analysis

Right off the bat, that game was one of the worst showings this team has had, maybe since the 0-5 with Mourinho. Yes, Ancelotti made a bunch of mistakes that are hard to understand, but he is the best coach Madrid has had since Del Bosque, helped cement the history-making squad, and then helped the team transition out of that generation. He has a whole season-long pass from me (and all those calling him names and for his head here… your age is showing.)

Ok, that said — there are some real, glaring, fixable problems in this team:

Valverde needs to be RB, simple as that. I love and appreciate all Lucas has done for us, but he’s just not up to snuff anymore, this game showed it in every single way, and the season’s about to get hot. We can mitigate losing him in the middle, but we absolutely cannot afford the hole in the RB.

Tchouameni isn’t actually a CB option. The guy has been on thin ice with me for some time, but at this point I don’t even think I can take stock of his value because he is in a position that’s extra vulnerable this season, and is just not his. Asencio has done enough to offset for his youth and at this point in the season, is just giving more confidence than Tchouameni in every facet of the game.

It’s painfully obvious this team is lacking a talented LB, and while someone gets signed we need to play the better defender, pin him to start, and make him just focus on defending.

Vinicius can’t be an untouchable until late in the game (especially in big games!!!) He was a ghost the majority of the game, and one of the few right decisions Carlo made today was to sub him off for Brahim. Our Bench has ideas and actually offers alternatives that we can’t ignore just so we can keep our chips on Plan A.

The best cure for this team’s defense is two CDMs, we have the squad for it, we just need to accept it and play that game. We need to play Xmas tree and not 4-3-3 so that our defense gets more help and we can still afford some liberties to our attackers. Ceballos is having one of his best seasons and this would harness that, too.

Lastly, this team (and most importantly, these fans and this sub) need to accept that we might not win anything this season, and that is not the end of the world. We lost Kroos, we lost a starting CB, a starting RB (who’s also the team captain), and we’ve spent 3 months adapting a mega talent - and might I say, he’s starting to gel with the team!!! It’s ok if we have a blank, restart season. Some of our best periods have followed blank seasons before. (la Décima followed Mou’s last year, the treble followed the 2015 season where everything fell apart): these things happen, especially at Real, we’ll survive.