Carlo Ancelotti has admitted Real Madrid’s chances of winning the League have been hit by defeat to Sevilla.
Los Blancos lost 2-1 at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan, only days after they were beaten 4-3 by Barcelona in El Clasico.
Ancelotti’s team are now third in the table, a point behind Barca and three behind leaders Atletico Madrid.
“I don’t think the defeat [to Barca] affected us,” Ancelotti told a post-match Press conference.
“Before everything was going well and now we’ve arrived here. We need to react with character and personality.
“The League is more complicated and all the matches will be important.”
Ancelotti argued that Madrid were hard done by against Sevilla but conceded Los Rojiblancos’ pace on the break caught Madrid unaware.
“I don’t think we deserved to lose. Maybe we did because we didn’t prepare well for Sevilla’s counter-attacks and that’s how they scored both goals,” the Italian added.
“We took the lead and could have scored more goals, then they scored two goals the same way when we needed balance.”
Ancelotti also defended Xabi Alonso from criticism after the midfielder lost the ball in the lead-up to a Sevilla goal and insisted Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t angry he couldn’t take the last free-kick of the game.
“Alonso isn’t at fault. He miscontrolled the ball but we have to cover him and we didn’t,” Ancelotti continued.
“Cristiano was annoyed because we were losing the match, nothing more.
“Now La Liga is complicated because we’re behind. Complicated but not impossible.”
Ancelotti was asked if Madrid have a problem beating the big teams after struggling against Barca, Atletico and now Sevilla.
“There’s no problem. We’ve lost against smaller teams,” he countered.
“La Liga is difficult and there’s a lot of strong teams and hard matches.
“We have to think about ourselves. We’ve lost two games but we have to believe we can win it.
“We are behind but we have to believe it’s possible.”
