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Notes & Quotes: October 7, 2018

Ramos has thoughts about “crazy” idea of Lopetegui sacking and Lopetegui has some thoughts on it of his own

Deportivo Alaves v Real Madrid CF - La Liga Photo by Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images

Ramos thinks it would be ‘“crazy” to sack Lopetegui

Well the sky is falling and many are looking for someone to point at. The easiest one to do so is the manager, with many calling for his sacking already. Sergio Ramos was interviewed about the club’s current situation.

“Other people take decisions like that, but it’s never good when there is a change in coach. It would be crazy.”

“We have to move on, because the season is very long and there’s a very long way to go. Whoever says Real Madrid are dead is always proved wrong in the long term.” We are the first people that need to do more to improve and we’re trying to do that. It’s not fair to point the blame at anyone, we’re all conscious of the reality.”

“Results are what people talk about and especially when you lose, but we are still committed, we are still ambitious and we still want to win, it’s in our DNA. We’re on the right path despite the bad results.”

Obviously, things are looking pretty bleak around Real Madrid with their recent form. It’s been a bit alleviated by the fact that Barcelona haven’t been in top form in LaLiga either. I do think that people are overreacting a bit, though.

No doubt the team hasn’t been doing well at all, added to the fact that they can’t score and now may be without Bale and Benzema. And there’s also no doubt that Lopetegui takes a large share of the blame, but I don’t think it’s time to consider sacking him and it’s not solely his fault.

Just about two months into the season isn’t a large enough sample size yet, even though they are struggling to score right now. Yes, it’s frustrating, but overreacting when there’s no real replacement in the managing market is fatal. It’s easy to blame the manager, but putting that anger into action could cost the team even further. Zidane isn’t coming back and Mourinho potentially returning would be a terrible idea. I think you have to at least give Lopetegui until the January transfer period.

The ultimate culprit is not adding depth over the summer when they lost Kovacic and Ronaldo. Now, with injuries adding up, it’s becoming even more apparent that they needed to add depth to the squad, Mariano wasn’t enough. Still, sacking Lopetegui already without a proper replacement in-line would be foolish and highly based on overreaction. So, Ramos is right in saying that it’s a crazy idea.

Lopetegui doesn’t fear sacking

Expanding on Lopetegui being sacked, he was interviewed about the same idea himself.

“A coach does not think about it.”

“We know that it is not a good time and in the worst case we are three points away from the top.”

“Obviously, peace of mind would come with a goal.”

The worst case scenario didn’t come true, as Valencia and Barcelona drew 1-1 on Sunday. So, Real Madrid are currently in 4th, just 2 points behind new league leaders Sevilla. Clearly, it could be much worse right now for Real Madrid.

It’s pretty obvious a manager isn’t going to explain much about talks of him being sacked just months into his first season. If they could just start scoring again and get a win, much of this talk starts to tone down a bit. And putting together a streak would really flip things around, they have a brief time to recuperate since there is an international break until they play Levante on the 20th.

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