Alex Kirkland

It was him back to his best.

It wasn't just the goal.

Well, that was sort of the icing on the cake.

It was the two assists, the other goal he created as well.

One interesting thing, it's not all sorted.

I don't think.

It was very notable that Vinicius Junior celebrated with all his teammates.

He ran across to hug the coach Arbeloa, who, as you heard there, has spoken so highly of him.

He didn't really engage with the fans.

You get the feeling that Vinicius is still hurting what he thinks is the way that he's been treated.

The fans would say, of course, they've just been unhappy with his performance.

his level of performance and the contract situation and the feeling that he was involved in the sacking of of xabi alonso but it was a big step forward a really positive step i think for the team not just for vinnie you mentioned for bellingham as well it did feel like a bit of a weight had been had been lifted but the big caveat is monaco are not a good team and you know let's see it's much too early still to say that this arbalo project is up and running yeah via real of course the weekend why were you pulling a face when i was reading those quotes steve well

Yeah, look, we know how divisive he is.

Up until fairly recently, it's been the case that Real Madrid fans have loved him and it's been fans of other teams that have had a problem.

That's changed.

And like I say, it's these three factors that have come together that I mentioned there.

It's the fact that he hasn't been playing well.

I think it's only five goals in the league this season.

He hasn't renewed his contract.

There's been no progress on those contract talks since May last year.