Real Madrid coach Ancelotti urges calm after Barcelona thrashing: An off night – nothing more

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti defended his team selection for Sunday night’s thrashing by Barcelona.

Barca ranout 4-0 winners against the LaLiga leaders, with a Perre-Emerick Aubameyang brace, while Ronald Araujo and Ferran Torres were also on target.

Ancelotti later said: “The result and performance were not good. We suffered a lot, tried to start with a high press, but Barcelona found spaces, controlled possession and it was a difficult night.

“I don’t think it was a lack of a reference point, we could’ve kept the ball better with Modric’s position. The problem was that we couldn’t get the ball back the way we wanted to and when we went behind it became even more difficult.

“It was an off night. Nothing more.”

He also said: “We have a big advantage. The important thing is not to make a drama out of it. We’ve got the break for international duty, will hope to get players back from injury that we were missing this evening.

“The fans were very good, with us, even in the defeat. They’re aware that we didn’t have a good night and nobody knows what’ll happen over the coming months, but these two weeks will give us the chance to rest and prepare to win the next game. We’ve got an advantage, but we have to concentrate on winning every game. I don’t think this defeat will impact the team. The set up wasn’t right. I can get it wrong once, it’s quite rare it happens twice.

“We can’t go thinking that we’ve lost because Karimwasn’t playing. Where it went wrong is that we tried to press them a bit higher up the pitch and they played out from the back very well and after they got the first goal, we struggled even more to regain possession. We made a strong start, but we then really struggled to win the ball back, we took some risks at the back and we’ve struggled overall.”