Sid Lowe

But when you've got five men up front, why go and follow Arthur?

who's a number nine is out on the right wing why you've got people like Rodrigo and Brahim sort of playing in slightly deeper positions because there isn't really a sense of a structure so these two weeks that they've got to work on I think emotionally Stevie was rightly pointing out I think will be significant because they can work away from the pressure of having a test every three days having the fans on their back they can just get on with the work and they can do that work with a degree of continuity because they're not playing you know they've got six days before every game

The other thing I think is they can have some time to think about an actual structure.

Now, here's the question, as you say, what they do without about Bellingham.

Well, if they come up with a structure without Bellingham, then when he comes back, what do they do again?

Because they're confronted by the same situation again.

And bear in mind that when Bellingham went off today, they made a change which also involved a change of structure.

It wasn't just right.

Bellingham's injured.

Someone replaces Bellingham.

It was a replacement for Bellingham, Brahim coming on.

Then it was Vinicius who'd been playing on the left, going up front with Mbappé.

And then post-game, Arvaloa said, well, Vinicius is much better on the left when he's running at people, which is where he'd returned to in the second half.

And so you've got to find some sort of structure within which all these players can fit.

And to your question, what do you do with Bellingham?

Right now, you don't do anything.

But in four weeks' time, you've got that question to answer.

the reaction has been lots of barking and whining oh no sorry that was the dog um i've actually i've actually had my son's just crept in and and carried the dog out so hopefully i can give you the reaction the reaction has been one of obviously amazement at the way that it happened but also that the focus despite that extraordinary ended and and from my point of view at least you know that the story of course is a goalkeeper scoring a goal in the 97th minute but

But the focus in Madrid has been about an analysis of Real Madrid and where they're at.

And that sense of the improvement that everybody thought they saw, and I include myself in this, against Villarreal at the weekend was absolutely absent in the Champions League in midweek.