Since the arrival of Kylian Mbappe at Real Madrid, to great fanfare, one of the main talking points has been how Carlo Ancelotti would achieve balance in a side containing Kylian Mbappe, Rodrygo Goes, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior. With just three months to go in their season, it remains one of the major questions facing Los Blancos.
Ancelotti has spoken about the matter at length over the course of the season, asking for defensive work from his talented front four on numerous occasions. Although Bellingham has been more or less exempted from that discussion, only in short bursts have Ancelotti’s messages to his stars appear to have hit home.
It did briefly look as if he had managed it against Manchester City, as Los Blancos brushed aside Pep Guardiola’s outfit, and Ancelotti confirmed he had held a call with his stars to discuss their defending. Meanwhile Rodrygo has also publicly confirmed that Ancelotti has threatened to bench them if they do not put in more work.
Now RadioMarca have revealed some of the contents of that talking to that Ancelotti gave to Mbappe, Vinicius and Rodrygo in February. The Italian manager spoke to his star-studded trident in the aftermath (albeit two weeks later) their Spanish Supercup thrashing against Barcelona, falling 5-2 to their rivals. During that conversation, he compared some of the statistics between their loss, and Arsenal’s victory over Manchester City, where the former managed to win 5-1.
Ancelotti read out the distance covered by Leandro Trossard (10.85km), Kai Havertz (10.85km), Gabriele Martinelli and Bukayo Saka, who were between 11km and 13km. He then came to their distance covered statistics against Barcelona: Vinicius (8.7km), Mbappe (5km), ‘less than Courtois’, Ancelotti allegedly joked.
It clearly worked against Manchester City, but that message appears to have sunk to the back of their mind again, with Los Blancos succumbing to Arsenal at the Emirates. Beyond their defeat to Arsenal though, Real Madrid have been haemorrhaging goals of late, with just two clean sheets in their last 17 games.
