Tuesday 21 April 2015 13:31, UK
Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti should take some of the blame for the club’s current injury problems for not trusting his back-up players this season, says Spanish football expert Terry Gibson.
The European champions play Atletico Madrid in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final at the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday night with the tie delicately balanced after a goalless draw in the first encounter last week.
However, Real head into the showdown with their city rivals bedevilled by a whole host of injuries to key players, with the likes of midfielder Luka Modric, forward Gareth Bale and striker Karim Benzema all absent.
And Gibson feels Ancelotti’s failure to rotate his first-team squad enough throughout the campaign by making more use of his reserve-team players has partly resulted in the club’s present injury crisis ahead of one of their most important matches of the season.
“We have to be aware of the fact Ancelotti asked for a smaller squad last summer and there probably has been a failure of him in trusting the players who have been on the fringes,” he told the La Liga Weekly podcast.
“I have said many times before there are suitable games, in La Liga particularly, where Real can rotate. Recently against Granada, where they won 9-1 at home, Ancelotti was forced to because of suspensions and injuries. But right throughout the season, if they are playing Levante or Almeria at home, you can rotate in those games.
“We are never sure who is going to be right or wrong with this system. Diego Simeone played his players for 60 games last season, and the majority of them played the 60 games, but they ran out of steam with 30 seconds to go in the Champions League final. So that is how close they came.
“But it is just really unfortunate for us, as neutrals, that we cannot see the very best players playing in a tie like this. To be missing Bale, Benzema, Modric, while Marcelo (suspended) is also a big miss too for Madrid, and Fabio Coentrao has not played much recently. At the moment it is difficult to predict how Ancelotti’s team will line up."
Gibson, though, believes Real can take great confidence from how they performed at Atletico last Tuesday.
However, the former Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur frontman also thinks Diego Simeone’s side are suffering from an unnecessary inferiority complex whenever they face Los Blancos, a condition they must eradicate if they wish to eliminate the holders.
“I was really impressed with Real’s performance against Atletico in the first half last week,” he said. “But I was surprised as there almost appeared to still be a slight inferiority complex from Atletico in the first half because Real dominated and had all the possession.
“It was all in the attacking half of the pitch and it appeared to be that it took til half-time until Simeone got into his players and then it became more competitive in the second half, which was not so one-sided.
“It is important Atletico do not drop so deep and have that inferiority complex, which they should not. It is quite incredible it looked like that in the first half, given their recent record, but they still see themselves as underdogs and I think that favours Real Madrid slightly.”
Download the La Liga Weekly podcast by visiting www.skysports.com/podcasts
