Real Madrid have made a good start to the 2025-26 season, but there has been growing discontent in recent weeks – and this has made its way all the way up to club president Florentino Perez.
Xabi Alonso has done well since taking over from Carlo Ancelotti as Real Madrid head coach, but not everything is going his way. He had a well-documented spat with Vinicius Junior after the Brazilian’s substitution in El Clasico, and although that has now been settled, the ramifications of that incident are still ongoing.
This, coupled with player concerns after the midweek defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League, have led Perez to become increasingly concerned about Alonso and his position as head coach, according to Sport.
Perez has also reportedly bee unconvinced by Alonso’s tactical efforts – specifically, there is a feeling that he has had to rely on a settled core group of Real Madrid players, with very few changes made game-to-game. Furthermore, the club’s hierarchy are said to have not seen any of “the footballing modernity” that was promised upon the arrival of the former Bayer Leverkusen manager.
Perez did not have Alonso as first-choice manager option
Interestingly, the report states that Perez had initially wanted Jurgen Klopp to replace Carlo Ancelotti as Real Madrid head coach, but when the former Liverpool manager made it clear that he did not want to return to the dugout, it was decided that Alonso would be who the club sought to hire.
There has been so much noise surrounding Alonso in recent weeks, and this certainly will not be helping him or the players. For now, things are generally going well, and victory at Rayo Vallecano on Sunday would ensure that Real Madrid go into the third international break of the season with at least a five-point lead in the La Liga standings.
What is the source of this story John?
You guys seem to bring it up often – especially at the slightest dip in RM’s form. This is a very new structure and the players and coach have to live through mistakes to learn. We are only 15 games in FFS.
So much panic for what? Yes, Alonso is not an experienced coach, still learning and RM is too big for him. He doesn’t know how to use what he got effectively. Lesson 1, you can’t please everyone, 2. Be consistent, 3 Know your players strength, 4 Rotation for games you have leverage on, see how it goes…At this rste, the EPL teams are far better than RM.
Many Madridistas are definitely very concerned and worried about the huge mistake our poor and brainless president, Florentino Perez, did when his mistakenly hired not so great coach, Xabi Alonso, as our new Real Madrid coach.
A much better coach to chose would have been Jurgen Klopp.
As Xabi is not that great yet and still learning he has cost our team many major losses that we should have won.
I doubt that Real Madrid is capable to win any silverware this season, very sad. We are not yet a good and a world class team, far from it.
You sound like a barcelona fan.
First place in La Liga plus third-best record in current Champions’ League standings- with almost-perfect records of only 1 loss in each not enough?
So any manager who doesn’t sport a zero loss record is subject to firing / only unbeaten record tolerated?
And when mentally-unbalanced, egomaniacal star players refuse to play defense, alter position play and throw hissy fits- it’s his fault?
Okie, dokie.