After their performance against Almeria .. Ancelotti: “The Real Madrid shirt is heavy for these two players”

Real Madrid managed to leave southern Spain with a 2-1 victory over Almeria on Sunday night, but it was a tough game and they were 1-0 down at the end of the first half.

The coach went to think of the game as a whole. He said: “We started the game poorly, as they found space behind the defence. This made the match difficult, as they were very good at closing spaces.”

He added: “We had many shots, but we struggled to score. In the second half, they were more tired and we had more control and chances. Lucas Vazquez did a good job [to equalize]. He’s always on the alert, always showing the right strength and the right behavior.”

During the post-match press conference at Power Horse Stadium, the coach was asked about Marco Asensio, who did not warm up. Ancelotti said: “As long as he is a Real Madrid player, he is a Real Madrid player. We need to remember how good it was last year. Anything can happen before August 31, but now he is an important player at Real Madrid.”

And about changing Alaba, who scored the winning goal as soon as he came down, Ancelotti said: “Those who should have taken the free kick were Benzema or Toni Kroos… But Alaba entered, and threw it very well. David told him to come down quickly, to take the free kick. It wasn’t easy telling Benzema and Toni that they won’t pay it… It’s a joke (laughs).”

On Hazard and the option to play against Las Palmas, Ancelotti said: “I don’t know, I have to think about it … We have to keep in mind that we have Vinicius, who likes to play as a winger a lot.” Today we have few spaces. Physically, Hazard is doing well and I think he will have minutes.”

At half-time, Carlo Ancelotti replaced Eduardo Camavinga with Luka Modric, while new signing Aurelien Tchouameni did not last longer than 54 minutes on the field.

When asked after the match whether the Real Madrid shirt was too heavy for the participating young players, the Italian partly agreed. “The guys deserved to play because of what they do in training but, maybe this match weighed a little bit emotionally,” the coach said.

He concluded: “They did not show the quality they gave in training, but this is normal since they were young because this shirt is heavy. I didn’t replace Camavinga because of any mistake he made, just because he got a yellow yellow card and I was afraid to send him off and play with ten men.”

source: marca