Real Madrid Need to Rediscover Their Grit in Season-Defining Week

George Graham's Arsenal may be the side chiefly associated with a '1-0' scoreline in the minds of many, but Real Madrid, leaning away from the club's fabled glitz and glamour, earned their latest silverware playing football infused with a similarly gritty resolve.

It wasn't always pretty, and those on the other side of the Clasico divide will undoubtedly hiss some conspiracy about VAR, but Madrid ground their way through La Liga's post-lockdown stretch to great success, winning just their second top flight title in eight years.

After trailing Barcelona when the season was suspended in March, Madrid won their first ten fixtures following the restart, six of them by just the single goal including a run of three consecutive, hard-fought 1-0 wins.

Los Blancos repeated that scoreline against Europa League winners Sevilla on Saturday with a much improved display not entirely in-keeping with the club's patchy start.

Even during their stuttering start to the campaign, going forward hasn't been a problem for Madrid. They remain one of the best in the Spanish top flight for a host of attacking metrics and created plenty of chances against Sevilla, even if the breakthrough was courtesy of an own goal from the opposition goalkeeper.

Yet, more pertinently, Madrid's backline held up remarkably well even though world class defender Sergio Ramos was once again sidelined. Zidane's side ceded possession but allowed their hosts few chances of any genuine quality - Sevilla didn't have a single shot with more than a 7% probability of scoring (that's very low) according to UnderStat's expected goals (xG) model.

However, Saturday's result was just their second 1-0 win from the opening 16 games of the season. An inability to replicate the tight defensive display against Sevilla or from the backend of last season has been a key factor in Madrid's staccato start.

Going into the weekend's fixtures, Madrid ranked eighth in La Liga for non-penalty xG conceded. Essentially, they were giving up chances befitting the status of a mid-table outfit. This is a dramatic drop-off from their league-leading defensive record, both in terms of xG and reality, last season. On their way to the title, Madrid conceded just 26 goals in 38 league outings, ensuring they boasted the lowest goals against per game ratio across Europe's top five leagues.

This term they are averaging almost double that ludicrously low figure, though the circumstances of their recent concessions should be considered. The last seven goals Madrid have conceded in La Liga have been made up of five penalties, one own goal and an uncharacteristic blunder from Thibaut Courtois.

Nevertheless, even if penalties were excluded, Madrid are conceding more shots of much better quality on average this season compared to last, though the Sevilla clash was a notable, and perhaps prescient, exception.

With 11 games of the 2019/20 campaign to play, Madrid seemed to treat post-lockdown La Liga as a separate competition in and of itself. Ramos - whose penalties were often decisive in those narrow victories - called it the 'COVID league' and Madrid may be best served framing the upcoming week with a similar spin.

Three days after hosting Borussia Monchengladbach in the Champions League, Los Blancos welcome their table-topping city rivals Atletico Madrid to the Estadio Alfredo di Stefano.

Borussia Monchengladbach lead the delicately poised Group B where all four teams can qualify for the knockout stages or be eliminated. To avoid any nail-biting permutations, a win against the German side would put Madrid through to the last 16 for the 24th consecutive year.

While Champions League football post-Christmas without Madrid is near unthinkable, the derby against Atletico carries a similar weight to it.

Diego Simeone's team - propelled by the wondrous talents of Joao Felix - are one of only two sides in Europe's top five leagues yet to taste domestic defeat since football on the continent returned following the coronavirus-induced hiatus.

Atletico's defence hasn't endured any of the setbacks suffered by their rivals - they've conceded a staggering two league goals in ten games - and are fresh from recording a 1-0 win of their own against Barcelona.

Regardless of whether this week decides Zidane's future as manager, it will certainly play a huge role in the club's fortunes for the current campaign. If fans were allowed back into the stadium they probably wouldn’t pocket the white hankies to belt out a rendition of ’1-0 al Real Madrid’, but a return to their gritty slogs of June and July may be the club's best route to success.