"My hand is feeling the effects of thumping a door with a bit of anger. "We started really positively, and then after a couple of ludicrous mistakes, against a top team with brilliant players, it was always going to be a really difficult day for us. "At 2-0 down, with the energy and looking at the lads on the pitch, it looked a little bit like when we first came in. It looked a bit disjointed, they got their tails up,"
We made some significant defensive errors. They finished off the area very easily. We had a bad day. You can't have a bad day defensively against Barcelona.
Say what you like about Hansi Flick, but the first-team head coach isn't for turning. Win, lose or draw, he clearly won't have his Barça side playing any other way than with the high-risk, high-reward high line. As we saw again at Celta, when it doesn't work and the Blaugranes are so easily exposed, it looks amateurish. However, in the second half, there was a clear indication of how well it can contain opposition teams when used correctly.
They not only performed with more intent in midfield but were defensively more solid and sharper in attack, while Barcelona defended in shambles, were slow through the middle, and attacked with zero intent. In the end, goals from Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham helped Los Blancos take all three points over Hansi Flick's side, who had just a Fermin Lopez strike to show as consolation.
Barcelona have endured a rough start to the first El Clasico of the 2025/26 season. Hansi Flick's men have looked far from their best, especially in defence, where both full-backs have struggled to contain the relentless pressure from Real Madrid's front line. The Blaugrana found themselves punished early on when Kylian Mbappe finally broke through to open the scoring. Although Barcelona managed to find an equaliser soon after, their defensive lapses continued to cost them dearly.
If Nuno Espirito Santo had considered a relaxing cruise after being sacked by Nottingham Forest, he finally got to enjoy the feeling by watching his West Ham defence look all at sea while the driving rain was his ocean spray. Two lapses in concentration within the opening quarter of an hour gave Leeds victory and further highlighted that the Hammers are in a relegation battle.
I haven't seen the goal again, but I have the feeling I can do a lot better. We get pierced a bit easily, and then I have a bad reflex to go up, to take that step forward when I should have simply stepped back. Let's say that's a bit like how we defend at club level, and unfortunately, it's a bad reflex that costs dearly because we concede a goal, even though the action goes forward, but the result is that I could have done better on that goal.
