Deportivo de La Coruña - Real Madrid: Stats review

It was, definitely, a great game. Real Madrid needed to win to keep track of FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid, and so they did. The magnitude of this victory helps the team to forget their recent bad results and cut a losing streak in the Liga BBVA.

• The team's punch came back yesterday. Scoring eight goals is, obviously, quite a hard thing, and a good shooting precision is needed. To do that, Real Madrid notoriously improved their efficiency, as the following chart shows:
  

  	Games 1-3 (average)	Last game
  Shots	14	19
  Shots on target	5,67	13
  Goals	1,67	8

• It was somehow clear that Cristiano Ronaldo was the Man of the Match yesterday. In fact, Whoscored gives him a perfect mark of 10/10, mostly because of the three goals he scored. As he's been doing lately, he appeared in central positions frequently (see his heatmap below, via Squawka) and his collective involvement was remarkable. 60 touches with an stunning 86% of accurate passes are great numbers for the deadliest striker in the world.
  



• The flexibility of Ancelotti's system seems to be the key to unleash the full of James Rodríguez's potential, who was able to move freely between lines. Once again, Toni Kroos was the man with the biggest number of touches (104), but he only exceeded James by one, which clearly explains James's influence on the game. Furthermore, the Colombian #10 scored a goal out of his only shot in the game and stole three balls, one of which led to an assist to Cristiano Ronaldo's third goal.
• The substitutes did a great job yesterday as well. After Deportivo's goal, the match started to look bad, but Illarramendi's entrance in the 58th minute served to balance the team and keep the possession, and he was really helpful to that due to his outstanding 37/38 passes in 35 minutes. Isco, with two assists in 22 minutes, and Chicharito Hernández, with two goals out of two shots, in 16 minutes, were brilliant as well.