Alex Kirkland

Who knows?

The Champions League.

I can't see it.

I can't see it.

I agree that this is a really poor Real Madrid team that needs pretty major surgery.

And it's even poorer without someone like Mbappé in the team who's been sort of getting them out of trouble so often this season with his goals.

Not really.

I think that Arbeloa has sort of accepted that there are things that you can't change about this team and these players.

He's gone a bit back to basics, a bit more towards the sort of the model we saw from Carlo Ancelotti.

But not really.

I mean, Arbeloa really has been focused, I think, more on the stuff like getting the players back on boards, keeping them happy, getting Vinicius Junior delivering.

That stuff, rather than anything kind of tactical or systemic.

In terms of where it leaves Arbeloa, look, I think

that he could be one of these we've seen it before from someone like Santi Solari when he was in charge of Real Madrid where he gets this job loses it I think he stays at the club I think he goes back to being behind the scenes at the club or whether it's in the maybe not it's difficult to go back to being the reserve team coach when you've been the first team coach but I think he stays a part of of the furniture at Real Madrid unless he gets maybe a really attractive job offer somewhere else so I think everyone knows that he was promoted

ahead of time he was always a candidate to take over but it wasn't supposed to happen this soon because of course alonso was supposed to be a be a success these these problems are not of our below is making we can't blame him for these problems these problems were existed before they existed before shabby alonso came in as well but i think it's also fair to say that while he's managed to sort out some things and notably someone like vinicius jr who is performing when he wasn't before

But this task, I think, is bigger than Arboloa and he hasn't been able to get the team sorted because I think that was never really going to be a realistic option at this stage of the season.

And the last time I was asked about this when I was on, Kay, I was not feeling optimistic at all.

But that was before the North London derby.

And then Arsenal went and beat Spurs comfortably.

I'm feeling better.