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- Yesterday's game received a full write-up in Marca. Noting that Real Betis played a top-class game, the paper correctly stresses that Real Betis could have won the game by half-time. Elsewhere in the paper, a cerebral Carlo Ancelotti refuses to panic about his "excellent squad". Perhaps the team didn't play well but "we will improve". Meanwhile, match-winner Isco is thrilled to have scored with his head.
- As, meanwhile, provided an excellent summation of Carlo Ancelotti's post-match press conference. It can be found here, and it is suggested that after a fair but occasionally shaky performance in goal Diego Lopez is not yet necessarily the first choice keeper.
- Diego Simeone would like us to know he considers the league boring and a two-horse race fresh off his team's 3-1 win yesterday over Sevilla.
- The Guardian's Daniel Taylor has written up Leighton Baines of Everton. Not his transfer - his lack of one, and his lack of agitating for one. It's interesting reading for two reasons. The first is that Baines, should he move to Manchester United, will have made very little fuss, will have trained and will have played for his club and will arrive fit to begin playing. Madrid fans, facing the prospect of getting an out-of-form Gareth Bale, will be particularly interested in Taylor's "Bernabeu" source. Taylor mentions, as an aside, that 50,000 Gareth Bale shirts have already been printed in anticipation of the transfer. The same newspaper has Sid Lowe's latest, subtitled "Odd as it sounds, Real Madrid came close to losing the league on day one."
- The story of his taxation woes was never very convincing to begin with (the words "careless" and "incompetent" are not words that come to mind when thinking about super-agent Jorge Mendes) and Radamel Falcao has denied wanting to leave Monaco after being linked yesterday with Real Madrid.