Pepe: Madrid aren’t just counter-attacks

Pepe dismissed criticism from Xavi Hernandez that alleged Real Madrid are only a counter-attacking team and that’s why they won El Clasico.

The centre-back scored Madrid’s second goal to confirm the reply to Neymar’s opener, Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalty levelling the scores before Karim Benzema sealed the win.

Xavi argued it was Barca’s inability to deal with Madrid’s breaks that led to the victory but Pepe suggested Madrid were much more dominant than that.

“I don’t think that’s right. Our fans chanted ‘ole’ and that says it all,” he insisted, AS reports.

“They played a day earlier [in midweek] so we had less time to recover but we showed our level here. We must continue, with humility.”

Pepe added that it was Madrid’s mindset that overturned the score line, revealing the players felt they had something to prove after not getting the credit for beating Liverpool in midweek.

“We had a winning mentality in the second half and we turned the game because we had the will to do it,” he continued.

“I’d like to remind everyone that winning La Decima didn’t just happen.

“After the game against Liverpool we heard it was an easy game when we worked hard, as we did today.

“We’ve got La Decima and it’s not by chance. We worked hard enough to get it and people should understand that we work hard for our success.”

Pepe also suggested this is a better Madrid than last season as they have had more time to work under Carlo Ancelotti.

“We are stronger because we understand the Coach’s mentality more,” he noted.

“Eventually our movements become automatic. We’ve shown that today.

“Today we didn’t start well and conceded after three minutes but we reacted, had chances, to equalise and then did make it 1-1, and could have been ahead before the break.

“The important thing is we did go in front in the second half and we were the better team.”

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