One other week, one other Jude Bellingham masterclass in a Actual Madrid win.
Madrid have been made to work for his or her win over SSC Napoli on the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Tuesday night, counting on the brilliance of Bellingham and a reasonably lucky personal objective to earn a 3-2 victory.
This is the whole lot we realized from Madrid’s ninth win of the season in all competitions.
It is a daring assertion, but it surely’s one which’s exhausting to argue with proper now.
Whereas Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland can lay declare to the ‘greatest footballer on the planet’ tag for varied causes, primarily based on pure type through the 2023/24 season Bellingham needs to be prime of the pile proper now.
In the event you like stats: the attacking midfielder has scored the identical variety of objectives as Haaland and Mbappe regardless of not even being a striker.
In the event you like intangibles: he is offering match-winning contributions whereas enjoying for the largest membership round with the load of the world on his shoulders at simply 20 years outdated.
On Tuesday night, Bellingham as soon as once more proved to be the distinction maker for Madrid, helping the opener earlier than scoring a seemingly Diego Maradona-inspired second within the stadium named after the legendary Argentine.
Whereas Bellingham is proving to be a match winner for Madrid, on the different finish of the park Kepa Arrizabalaga is threatening to be a match loser week in, week out.
The loanee has changed Thibaut Courtois in objective after the Madrid primary suffered a season-ending ACL damage, and, as anybody who watched Chelsea in recent times might guess, he hasn’t precisely impressed up to now.
In typical Kepa style, the Spaniard flapped unnecessarily at a nook kick on Tuesday night to reward Napoli a route again into the sport within the first half, and he did not do an excessive amount of after that to redeem himself.
The difficulty for Carlo Ancelotti’s facet is that this wasn’t precisely an uncharacteristic error from Kepa, it was very a lot a attribute one and one which we anticipate he’ll make just a few extra instances this season.
Though Bellingham has been totally stupendous up to now this season, Ancelotti cannot depend on the England worldwide to win ever single sport for his facet.
That is the place Vinicius Junior is available in.
After a spell on the sidelines, Vini has returned to motion prior to now week and seemed as sharp as ever within the win over Napoli in midweek – scoring a traditional Vini objective within the first half.
Madrid coped pretty properly whereas the Brazilian was injured, successful all however one in all their video games, but it surely’s explicitly clear that they want a match and firing Vinicius if they are going to have any likelihood of dethroning Manchester Metropolis in Europe this season.
Actual Madrid’s centre-backs have been overwhelmed within the air by Victor Osimhen roughly 1,000 instances throughout Tuesday night’s sport. And whereas Osimhen is sweet within the air, these aerial duel wins have been extra right down to Antonio Rudiger and Nacho Fernandez’s incapacity to leap a couple of foot within the air than anything.
The identical points occurred when David Alaba was slotted into the backline as an alternative of Nacho through the latest Madrid derby defeat on the Estadio Civitas Metropolitano, with all three objectives Atleti scored coming from crosses into the penalty space.
And sure, you possibly can level to the truth that Madrid have conceded the least quantity of objectives in La Liga as some form of proof that their defence has really been fairly good this season, however we have seen clear weak factors within the backline be uncovered by high quality opposition in latest weeks.
Within the enterprise finish of the Champions League later within the season, anticipate these weak factors to be uncovered as soon as once more.
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