Craig Burley

Yeah, well, to be fair, I'm about the same.

Old school me would have been a bit different.

Yeah.

But once you've gone on, what do you think of...

Well, I would hope it would help my chipping, yes.

No, I don't think so.

Although I had them myself.

and it's going to be an interesting second half of the season.

There's a title race back on in Spain because of the way they've started.

But the problems that were there for Xabi Alonso are just not going to go away overnight.

Heavier reliant on Kylian Mbappe, a lack of discipline from other players.

You've got Asensio, you know, chucking himself to ground, making silly and rash decisions, getting sent off.

Rodrigo following him for descent.

All these things were sort of brewing up under Xabi Alonso and were issues that he wasn't able to solve, certainly not in the eyes of Florentino Perez.

And now Arbeloa, who...

Partly is well thought of, but at the end of the day, he's going to have the same issues.

And when you think about the team Real Madrid put out, and when you think about where Benfica are, and the whole lexicon of European football at the moment, they're not a strong side.

And they're probably, regardless of who they get,

Real Madrid or Inter, they're probably going to go out over two legs.

So when you look at the opposition, even though it was away from home, not a great night for Real Madrid or Arbelor.