Alaves vs Real Madrid - Zidane not concerned by Real Madrid's rocky start

Posted Saturday, September 23, 2017 by PA

Zinedine Zidane has no intention of pressing the panic button, despite a stuttering start to Real Madrid's title defence which already sees them trailing leaders Barcelona by seven points.

Wednesday's shock 1-0 defeat to Real Betis was the third successive home match where Real have dropped points, and was the first time in 74 competitive games that they had failed to score.

The setback left Real down in eighth spot and, with arch-rivals Barcelona flying high at the top of the table with five wins from five, Zidane's men are already having to make up a sizeable gap.

The Frenchman is refusing to let the situation worry him, though, telling a press conference ahead of Saturday's trip to struggling Alaves: "No, I'm not concerned. And there's no other remedy - we need to bounce back if we want to win LaLiga.

"Last year, when I arrived here, it was the same, we were also behind the leaders. And in football you know anything can happen. We have 33 rounds to go.

"We're not thinking the league is already lost. It's just started. You can be 10-15 points behind and you can rise and fall, everybody is going to have bad spells. We're going to continue doing our jobs."

He added of the Betis loss, where Antonio Sanabria struck a stoppage-time winner: "We had 27 chances and the ball didn't want to go in. We didn't have a great game, but neither a bad one. Now I'm thinking about tomorrow's game to try and do better and try to win."

Real will be without defender Marcelo for the trip north, with the Brazil international discovering on Friday he could be out for up to a month due to a leg injury.

Toni Kroos, Karim Benzema, Theo Hernandez and Mateo Kovacic could also be missing for a match where Zidane is set to come up against his son Enzo, who joined Alaves in the summer.

Zidane senior said: "Hopefully he doesn't score, because we're competitive. I'm happy for him, because he's working well and is in a good group. Tomorrow we face each other (but) I'm with Madrid and he's with Alaves."

Enzo Zidane was an unused substitute in midweek as Alaves slumped to a 1-0 loss at Deportivo La Coruna.

That was a fifth successive defeat for the Vitorian side, during which they have failed to score a goal, and left them second bottom of the standings.

It has been a miserable start to the season for Alaves, but Enzo Zidane is optimistic of better times ahead.

The 22-year-old midfielder told his club's website: "We've started badly, we didn't want to do it like that. We knew we were going to go through some difficult moments and we're doing that at the start of the season.

"There's a long way to go and time to turn things round because I trust in the team. I know that we're going to change it; the fans, the club and everybody deserves that."

Alaves go into the match having confirmed the appointment of former Torino, Levante and Albania boss Gianni De Biasi as their new coach on Friday evening.

Di Biasi replaces Luis Zubeldia, who was sacked following last weekend's defeat to Villarreal, but it remains to be seen if the 61-year-old Italian will be on the bench for the visit of Real.