Alex Kirkland

The sense of Xabi Alonso not connecting with some of the players, the sense of Xabi Alonso not entirely connecting with some of the club hierarchy, and just that feeling that actually, at what point was this going to get better?

So you can have that better scheme that you're talking about.

You can have a performance against Barcelona and think that's okay.

But you take a step back and you think, yeah, but what's really changed?

Well, I think that's part of it.

Of course it is, absolutely.

And that's always the case, of course, at Real Madrid.

That's the nature of, if you like, the political dynamics of Real Madrid, the power of Real Madrid, the kind of players you're alongside.

And as you mentioned that bit of fushies last night, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, by the way.

Now, admittedly, I'm a little reluctant to come up with a really definitive conclusion about what exactly is going on.

But as you rightly say, it looks like Xabi Alonso is saying to his players, we come and we stand and we applaud Barcelona, we give them a guard of honour.

And that Mbappé and maybe Rodrigo as well are saying, no, let's get out of there.

And that it's the players whose voice gets heard in that scenario.

And if so, of course, that speaks to some of the things we've seen throughout the course of the season.

We saw Fede Valverde get annoyed about playing at fullback.

And the really big one, I remember we talked about it endlessly at the time.

In the Classico in which they played pretty well with 15 minutes ago, they replaced Vinicius Junior and he goes straight down the tunnel having a go.

Now, at that point, we think, yeah, but this doesn't really matter.

It's a play against angry.

They've had a pretty good performance.