Real Madrid will go into their Champions League quarter-final first leg away to Arsenal at their lowest ebb this season.
Mikel Arteta’s squad is struggling with inconsistency and injuries to key players after their 1-1 draw with Everton but Madrid are now fraught with angst after struggling Valencia scored a 95th-minute winner at the Bernabeu. The tie with Arsenal looks as uncertain as it does exciting.
The 2-1 defeat to Valencia could have left their La Liga hopes in tatters but Barcelona followed up with a draw at home to Real Betis, meaning the gap to Hansi Flick’s team is four points when it could have been six.
The result has added to the many doubts the team has been dragging around since August, just three days before visiting Arsenal.
Carlo Ancelotti acknowledged in a press conference that “it’s much more difficult to fight” for the league after Hugo Duro’s last-gasp goal for Valencia. “We have the idea of doing well until the end because we still have options.“
“He (Ancelotti) was angry (in the dressing room),” a player, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, told The Athletic.
Ancelotti and Mbappe at full-time (JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images)
For Madrid to beat the likes of Barcelona and Arsenal it is going to be vital they find the best version of their strikers. Kylian Mbappe has been isolated since the turn of the year, and too little is being said about the shortcomings in attack.
The team’s defensive problems have been well documented. There have been serious knee injuries to Dani Carvajal (October) and Eder Militao (November), while David Alaba has yet to return to his best form since his return in January after 13 months out after a knee injury of his own.
At right-back, Lucas Vazquez is struggling and there is a lack of replacements at in that position.
The club took a risk in not signing a centre-back in the summer — they failed to land Leny Yoro, who eventually joined Manchester United — or in the January window.
All this has resulted in Madrid conceding 31 goals in 30 league games. For context, they only conceded 26 in the whole of last season.
This was more or less budgeted for last summer, mainly because of the departure of Toni Kroos and the arrival of Mbappe as a free agent.
The Athletic reported in July that there was a feeling among coaching staff that there could be less reliability at the back this campaign, with the expectation of conceding 10 to 15 more goals but the hope, with Mbappe, of increasing the goalscoring significantly.
The harsh reality is that Madrid have scored three fewer goals and conceded 11 more at this stage of the league compared to last season.
Ancelotti summed it up on Saturday by saying that their “opponents don’t need to work hard to score against us” and that his side “lacked a bit of effectiveness in attack”.
He was right. Madrid had an expected goals (xG) of 3.63. According to Opta, they had not lost at the Bernabeu in La Liga after taking so many shots on goal (21) since January 2019 against Real Sociedad (28).
Given the complications of fixing the defence, the forward line must simply has to step up and help Mbappe.
In 2025, after confirming that the improvement seen in December was no fluke, Mbappe has been left on his own. The France forward has scored 19 goals and provided one assist in 23 games since January 3 and, after his brace against Leganes last weekend, has equalled Cristiano Ronaldo’s total of 33 goals in his first season as a Madrid player.
However, his team-mates are not at the required level.
Vinicius Junior, whistled by the Madrid fans, both against Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey and Valencia, has just six goals and five assists in 22 games in 2025. He did score the equaliser on Saturday but again was not at his best and also saw his early penalty saved.
Rodrygo has just eight goals and five assists in 24 games in the same period and was introduced after 57 minutes for this defeat.
Rodrygo came on for Brahim Diaz (JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images)
There’s a saying in Spain that comparisons are odious, and Real Madrid and Barcelona’s are becoming more so every week.
Flick’s side have scored 20 more goals and conceded two fewer than Ancelotti’s in the league.
Individually, Raphinha has ten goals and ten assists in 21 games this year (in all competitions). Robert Lewandowski, 15 goals and one assist in 18; and Lamine Yamal, seven goals and eight assists in 21.
The gap collectively and individually is too huge and the Copa del Rey final against their great rivals on April 26 could be a mismatch.
But Real Madrid have another big concern first, on Tuesday at the Emirates. They will need to minimise Arsenal’s attacking impact with the Mbappe-Rodrygo-Vinicius Jr attacking trident living up to expectations, too.
(Top photo: Vinicius Jr has not been at his best in recent months. Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images)