MY ACCOUNT
Carlo Ancelotti has no doubt over the motivation of his Real Madrid side as he stressed Los Blancos are “where they want to be”.
LaLiga leaders Madrid sat six points clear of second-placed Sevilla at the time of Ancelotti’s news conference on Friday, though the Andalusian team might have narrowed that gap down to three before Los Blancos take on Real Sociedad on Saturday.
After seven consecutive wins over Sociedad in LaLiga between 2015 and 2018, Madrid have won just three of their past seven meetings with the Basque side in the top flight and Ancelotti is expecting a tough test.
However, the Italian insisted he is happy with the progress Madrid have made so far during his second spell in charge. While they are out of the Copa del Rey, Madrid are still favourites for the title and are in with a chance of Champions League progression, albeit they must overcome a 1-0 deficit from the first leg of their last-16 tie when they face Paris Saint-Germain next week.
“We have done really good things this season. It could have been better, but could have been worse as well,” Ancelotti said.
“I’m honestly happy with the work we’ve done, the job we’ve done throughout the season.
“I think we’ve handled quite well the situations and now we are where we wanted to be in a very important moment of the season.
“It’s true we are disappointed about being eliminated in the Copa del Rey when we didn’t have Karim [Benzema] but we are six points clear of Sevilla, we have to fight until the end and we can also overcome PSG, so we are motivated to do it.
“I’d like to highlight it’s four [league] games in a row that we didn’t concede a goal and that’s solidity.”
Madrid have won 18, drawn six and lost two of their LaLiga matches this season and sit on 64 points.
With just 12 games remaining, Ancelotti agreed with the suggestion that a relatively low points tally might be enough to secure the title this season, though he does not believe that is a reflection of LaLiga’s declining quality – in fact, he mused that it means quite the opposite.
“It’s true that now you don’t have to reach that high of an amount of points but you can see from two different sides,” he said.
“You can think the biggest teams have reached a level but you could also think that the rest of the teams had an upgrade. Right now there are really good coaches, really good players.
“This just means that LaLiga is better than the previous period.”
Federico Valverde and Toni Kroos will be missing against Sociedad, though Ancelotti expects both to return in time to face PSG.
“Valverde will be available to play against PSG and I think also Kroos will be available, it’s a small problem, I think both will be available and fit for that game,” he said.
“It’s not a problem, it’s a bit of bad luck. We need to live with these type of things, it’s normal at this part of the season. Kroos probably will have to stop for five, six days.
“At this moment of the season, these kinds of injuries means that we have managed the squad and also the physical condition [of the players] quite well.”
