Carlo Ancelotti explains to Barcelona’s Eric Garcia and Marc-Andre ter Stegen how to prevent red card error

Barcelona went down to their first defeat against AS Monaco on Thursday night, kicking off their European campaign in dreadful fashion. The game swung on an early red card following a mix-up between Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Eric Garcia, which ended up with the latter sent off. Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti had a word of advice for them.

The talking point in the Spanish capital has been Ancelotti potentially dropping one of his forwards and going back to a 4-4-2 formation, with Bellingham the link between the midfield and the forwards. However the Italian coach told the press on Friday that it was about balance, not the number of forwards or midfielders.

“The goal of the team is to be compact. If Vini, Kylian and Rodrygo try to press high and the midfielders don’t go up and the defence doesn’t go up… it’s not a problem for the three of them. I’m not saying that they have to defend, but we have to get a little closer to the distance with the midfield. I understand that your thought that the lack of balance is because the three at the top are not working, but that is not the case because I am not asking them to have to do the work of the midfielders and the defenders. I could put three defenders, but it is called balance because of this. There is work without the ball and with the ball.”

Meanwhile he also addressed the high number of chances being conceded by Los Blancos, with Stuttgart shooting 17 times at the Santiago Bernabeu on Tuesday. There too, Ancelotti contradicted the idea that they are not defending well, by pointing to their build-up from the back.

“It is an issue that we are evaluating, we have conceded and they have created too many opportunities for us. We have failed to build from the back, which happened yesterday to Barcelona which cost them the red card. They have created chances against us because we have failed with the ball, not because of our positioning. I think that to avoid this does not mean that we have to defend better, but rather to get the ball longer as best as possible. Sometimes a long ball is the answer.”

Los Blancos face Espanyol on Saturday night at 21:00 CEST, where they will hope to cut the back to Barcelona down to one ahead of their trip to Villarreal. They will then host Alaves, before traveling to the Metropolitano for the Madrid derby in a crunch match.

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