It is no gainsaying that Real Madrid this season has not really been the team most of us watched last season, even with the arrival of super stars Kylian Mbappe, Endrick and some other great footballing talents.
The team have struggled practically in every game they have played this current season, and often manages to escape defeats, narrowly, on several occasions.
Many people have blamed it on the absence of the irreplaceable Toni Kross who retired at the end of last season, some blamed it on the arrival of Mbappe, making the team struggle with the influence brought into the team by the new additions, while some others blamed it on the positions these players are deployed by their manager, Carlo Ancelotti.
Be that as it may, all of these factors have one thing or the other to do with the over all lacklustre performance of the team this season.
On individual basis, the performance of some key players in the team has equally affected their performance. For instance, in the absence of Toni Kross, we have seen that Valverde practically contributes nothing to that team; zero creativity, zero killer passes, zero attacking threats, zero seriousness and some other issues.
So, that alone has done a lot of damage to the team. Then we talk about Tchoumani, he’s only a physically strong player but zero creativity and accurate passes, loses ball possession more often and with lots of blunders just as Valverde.
Then Mbappe and Vinicius Jr, both can’t perform at their level outside their trademark left flank. Playing Mbappe as center forward has done nothing good to that team coz we have seen how he struggles to perform in the team, making it look like he’s not the Mbappe we used to know at PSG.
Then Mendy on his own is behind expectations, and I don’t know why a player like Frank Garcia should always be on the bench for the sake of Mendy. Both his attacking and defending potentials are far below the standard required by Real Madrid.
Equally, the combination of Rudiger and Militao seems to be leaking at some end, hence causing the team problems at times. Though they are very good individually, but I doubt their combination on the other hand.
Though the coach could actually do some home work on them and I think there will be improvement from that side coz already they have the individual qualities already. He has repeatedly been their saviour this season, and I wonder what would have been Real Madrid’s condition should they not have a saviour like Thibaut Curtois.
Without the consistent world class Performances of Thibaut Curtois, Real Madrid would have suffered worse embarrassment this season.
Sadly, Carlo Ancelotti has remained so stubborn in the face of all these problems facing the team. Such that he has refused to make changes to the pattern and formation that has obviously kept the team in the bad condition it has found itself since the beginning of this season.
I have watched every single game of Real Madrid this season, including the game against Espanyol Saturday night. And we saw some positivity in the game based on the changes made by the coach. But still, we see that the team isn’t playing well and found it hard to have a satisfactory end product.
But most importantly, the club must find a perfect replacement for Toni Kross, and must get rid of both Valverde and Tchoumani as they are not the solution of the plethora of on field problems plaguing the team.
If you haven’t watched Barcelona games, try and do. See how the team plays, and the quality their midfielders bring into the game, and you will see where the problem is Real Madrid lay. Without quality and creative midfield, every quality forward will struggle and that’s one of the major problem facing the Los Blancos this season.
But let’s see how things will be when Camavinga returns to the team as well. At least he brings so much quality and creativity to the team. Regardless, the team must find solution to these issues raised here.
