Ramos can't save the day for Real Madrid every time

As if rejecting my praises about their versatile game, Real Madrid has turned to a more conservative approach in their game in the last two weeks, which has put Barcelona and Sevilla back in the title race.

The pressure on the team may have caused this, and Zinedine Zidane may have felt that he had to secure a clean sheet in every game, but as history repeatedly shows, radical decisions made under panicking conditions mostly turn out to be harmful than beneficial. Thus, even though Real won against Betis and took a deep, relieving breath after two painful weeks, their game unfortunately is not the same as what it was in the first half of the season. Unfortunately, if this continues to be the case, Sergio Ramos cannot save the day every time for Zidane's team.

First of all, almost all the defensive support for offense is gone, and Real's defenders, except Marcelo, do not take risks by pushing the offensive line forward. This had a huge impact on the team's offense because without the back support forwards lost their connection with the beginning of the build-up, and their meetings with the ball has become more chaotic and random than ever.

Therefore, opponents which see this clear mistake in the Real Madrid's game started to be more active in midfield and cut Luka Modric's and Toni Kroos's connection between offense and defense, making their opponent's game much more unpredictable and unstable. Real Madrid's response to this problem has been strengthening the defensive line and relying on classic counter-attacks more than ever in this season. Their usual counter-attacking game, before Zidane made it more versatile and a bit more dominant, is active now and given it is less versatile and opponents know how to deal with it better, Real is struggling to get three points. However, what Zinedine Zidane should have done was that he had to trust his reformed strategy which made Real the obvious candidate for championship this year. For a team like Real Madrid, it is unacceptable to recoil to such defensive and unconfident strategies, because the nature of this club requires taking risks and trusting the high quality strategies and players of the team. Zidane must understand that by, passing set-pieces and replacing them with direct goal-kicks to the opponent's defense neither decreases the opponent's offensive threat, nor does it makes Real's offensives less risky. What this ancient method of counter-attacking does is that it takes the game into a giant black hole, in which no one can predict what can come out of it.

Nevertheless, what Real Madrid needs for the championship is a concrete and reliable plan for offense and defense. I understand the tension in the club, and the expectations among the fans, but for a club like Real Madrid these should not interrupt the strategies of the football team. Still, Zidane and his players have the highest chance of winning the championship, but they have to bring back their sophisticated, collective and more importantly versatile game back if they want to guarantee the title.