Three takeaways from Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw against Valladolid

Real Madrid couldn’t earn the three points against Valladolid. Los Blancos completed an encouraging performance in the season opener in Vigo last week yet lost all momentum and confidence gained with a poor showing at the Bernabeu.

1. Same —mostly— personnel = same result. This group of players dropped manageable games at the Bernabeu last season and it’s clear that they’ll do more of the same this year. No big changes to the squad have been made and the team keeps lacking scoring punch and fundamentals, if not effort. It looked like the game was going to end 0-0, Benzema gave Madrid the lead in the 82nd minute and when it appeared that Real Madrid had stolen a win, a series of some basic mistakes led by Carvajal going to press instead of holding his position ended up in Valladolid’s equalizer. The same core of players stayed in Madrid and the same trend of dropping fairly easy wins at the Bernabeu continues. The famous “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”, basically.
2. Real Madrid have a problem at the right-back spot. We know that Carvajal is the undisputed starter there but he hasn’t been playing well for over a year now. Main issue is that Odriozola just isn’t ready and might never be, so Zidane’s roster has a big role in that part of the field. Achraf Hakimi could very well return from Dortmund next summer and become a starter for Madrid very soon but in the meantime, Los Blancos will struggle.
3. Has Vinicius completely lost his confidence? Where’s the exciting player who managed to dribble past defenders with ease? His performance this Saturday was completely abysmal during the 30 minutes Zidane gave him. He turned the ball over time and time again, didn’t create any danger and was even caught in the wrong end of a nutmeg. Vinicius should be competing for a spot in the starting lineup —even more so after Hazard and Asensio’s injury— and it turns out that right now he probably doesn’t deserve to play at all.