Liga BBVA – Athletic Bilbao 1-0 Real Madrid
Coach Ancelotti reacts:
“As always, I have to take a lot of the blame. There are some managers who disassociate themselves from their team if they do not play well. This is my team, they are not playing well and in this regard I am entirely responsible”.
“I am not going to give in because the truth is that the league is going to get more difficult, but it is not over yet and we are going to fight to fix the situation quickly. We can look for a solution with the quality we have”.
“It was an even match. Athletic defended well, they were compact and used the counterattack. They scored and the game turned out well for them. We really pushed forward in the second half, we were constantly in their half. This is not a fitness issue, it is about having a clearer approach in attack. It is not working well at the moment. The team gave away the game, not 45 minutes, because we lost. Athletic scored in the first half and we were unable to get an equaliser in the second half”.
“There is no link-up play, our play is too based around individual play, we need another way of attacking, with faster play and fewer touches. It is quite confusing to see what we’re doing at the moment in attack. The ball doesn’t move around quickly”.
“Our problem is mostly to do with attacking, we are not finding the same attacking solutions as we did previously. In the last few games we have just scored from penalties. That is the problem that we need to fix. We are lacking a little effectiveness up front”.
“The attacking game is a question of timing. The time taken to pass and get away from markers. The passes are not arriving because we take too many touches on the ball. It is a combination of the time between passing and getting away from the defender that is not working”.
“The atmosphere and motivation of the players is under control. We do not need to look for anything else. The team is compact and focused on the targets that we have to keep fighting for. We have to fix the problems quickly. It sounds strange to say that Real Madrid has attacking problems when we have scored so many goals this season, but it is the truth”.
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