Zidane: Madrid must improve

Zinedine Zidane admits he is “a bit concerned” after Real Madrid “didn’t find solutions” against Levante and asserts “we must play better.”

Madrid were held to their second draw in succession on Saturday, allowing Barcelona to move four points clear atop La Liga if they beat Espanyol, and Zidane made it clear Los Blancos could not be happy with their performance.

“We can’t be happy with our performance,” the Coach said after the game.

“Now we’re four points behind and we have to be a bit concerned. We have to find some solutions because we didn’t play well.

“We lacked a lot today. The starts of games are very important for us and we didn’t start well today.

“We played against a team that holed themselves up and we didn’t apply enough intensity.

“We have to score first, but they did instead and that’s what bothers me the most. Still, we won’t go crazy and we’ll think about the next game.

“It’s not a physical problem: we’re good physically, we showed that in the second half, which was better than the first.

“The problem was that we didn’t find solutions. We haven’t scored enough goals, so we have to be more clinical.

“Two full-backs, Marcelo and Theo? I'm happy with what they did. We didn’t work as a team, it wasn’t just them.

“We looked for the middle from their flank, but we didn’t find the right finish. I’m not going to change what I’m going to do with this team.

“I’m not going to change. We’re not going to go crazy over one bad game because this is what I believe in and we’ll keep going like this.

“No No 9 other than Benzema? This is the squad we have and we have no choice but to look for solutions within this squad.

“Cristiano and Benzema weren’t there and that can’t be changed. Still, I’m not worried about that.

“We have to be more clinical. What we can’t be happy with is what we did in the game today. We want to play better in order to pick up more points.

“We can’t be happy, especially with the first half. We dropped two points, we had a good game at Depor, but not today. We improved in the second half, but we can’t be happy.

“We can’t let them score or we must be the first to score. These things change over a season, but the time is now and we have to be calm and think we have a game on Wednesday.

“We have to turn things around, not just the results. We must play better.

“We have to forget what happened to us today, analyse it and look for solutions within this squad.”

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