Alonso faces being Madrid's weakest link as City roll in

Real's manager is under pressure before the latest edition of a fixture that has become a modern classic

- Sid Lowe

This is a team, it is a club, and we all go together hand in hand,’ Xabi Alonso insisted, protesting perhaps a little too much. “When you're Real Madrid coach you're ready,” he added on the morning before Manchester City return to the Santiago Bernabéu for the latest of a very modern classic against one of the many managers who made him.

“I'm looking forward to what’s coming and that starts tomorrow, [an opportunity] to turn round the anger. In our heads, there’s only City. In football, for better or worse, things change quickly.”

Lose and things could change immediately, and for good: this opportunity is an obligation, too.

At the end of Madrid’s desperately poor 2-0 home defeat against Celta on Sunday, Alonso said he had “drawn conclusions”, and he was not alone. Late into the night, crisis talks continued, the club’s hierarchy drawing their own conclusions after a single win in five league games. Their diagnoses were different and while drastic decisions remain on hold, patience is finite, the names of potential replacements already out. “You have to face those situations but my head’s only on the game, things 1 can control,” Alonso said here.