Bedlam At The Bernabeu, Barça’s Best No. 9 & Are Villarreal Title Contenders?

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1:07Alan Shearer:Coming up on today's show. Oh, that's a death touch. Carnage at the Bernabeu as the Real Madrid lose to Celta Vigo. Three Los Blancos players received red cards in the game. Barcelona stretched their lead at the top of La Liga table. a Ferran Torres hat-trick helped them on their way to thrashing Real Betis 5-3. Atletico Madrid slip up for the second time in a week, a cracking strike from Alex Berenguer late in the game was enough to give Athletic Bilbao all three points. Villarreal make it six wins in a row in La Liga, two cracking goals from Tejon Buchanan and Jorge Michautazzi as they ease Pass Getafe.

1:49Alan Shearer:Stay tuned for all the action.

2:01Alan Shearer:Hello and welcome to The Rest is Football La Liga with Alex Algeo and me, Gary Lineker. Lots to talk about from the weekend's football. Barcelona extending their lead at the top after Real Madrid. What do we say now? Mas que un crisis? We'll talk about that shortly. but Alex you've been on your travels firstly most important thing of all how was your trip to Paris with your mum? Oh we had a brilliant time thank you yeah went to Paris with mum to watch Ed Sheeran who was incredible as always so mum at the time of her life and then I went from Paris to Abu Dhabi I know did you bump into Micah? Abu Dhabi 2026 it's an absolute must wow Well, there's something I need to bring up here because it makes no sense to me.

2:53So we were chatting. He obviously saw I was out there. He's saying, let's have a TRIF reunion in Abu Dhabi. So talking about meeting up and everything. And then he said, but I'm keeping a very low profile out here.

3:06Alan Shearer:It didn't look very low profile to me. He said, people don't know I'm here. The next second he's all over my social media. He's here, there, everywhere. That's low profile for Micah then Do you think he's pied you off there Alex is that what you said? Well he says it the other way round he said that I pied him off but no it was it was absolutely brilliant out there it was so good had a great time I'd actually never been to an F1 race before so what a first one to go to congratulations to Lando and then it was straight from Abu Dhabi to Milano where I am now for Inter Liverpool later on which is quite an important game now for all sorts of obvious reasons.

3:49Storm Salah is brewing.

3:50Alan Shearer:I trust you've not got a Mo Salah interview before. Well, he's not even going, is he? That's the story, isn't he? He's not even in the squad. Yeah, get him on the pod, get him on the pod. But no, not ideal at all. We'll see what happens later. By the way, just on Micah's behalf here, I think from my experience, when he goes away on these things, he tends not to even look at his phone or answer it once he's in. No, no, he definitely wanted to meet up. But I had my own thing going on, so we didn't end up meeting, but it looked like he had a great time. OK, let's get cracking. Only one place to start, really, and that's Real Madrid's defeat at home to Celta Vigo.

4:29Alan Shearer:Let's have a look at the highlights. A win in La Liga at last for Real Madrid on Wednesday night. Can they follow that up as they host Celta Vigo here this evening? The visitors weren't able to offer too much by the way of attack in the first half. Can they change that here? This is Zaragoza. Zaragoza's ball in. Oh, that's a deft touch and a glorious finish from Viljot Svedberg to give Celta Vigo the lead.

5:04Alan Shearer:Zaragoza's cross but gloriously angled by Svedberg. Fran Garcia is going to go two yellow cards for him and Real Madrid's troubles worsen

5:20Alan Shearer:four minutes of stoppage time to try and find an equaliser and here comes another yellow card and here comes a second red card of the evening for Real Madrid

5:36Alan Shearer:Aspas Svedberg, the chance to finish it, which he does. Real Madrid's problems worsen. And Viliat Svedberg has enjoyed a second half to remember.

5:54Alan Shearer:He has a lot to ponder. Well, Alex, where do we start with that? What are they saying in Madrid? Well, what are they saying? The headline marker today is Una Finale para Xabi, talking about Wednesday's game against Manchester City. A final for Xabi, yeah. Yeah, and they're talking about Zinedine Zidane coming back for a third spell as Real Madrid manager. Yeah, they're saying that it's an absolute must win for Xabi Alonso because it really was a disastrous result. A terrible performance, not to take away from Celta Vigo, who played some superb football and thoroughly deserved the win. But they'd had those six away games in a row.

6:39And so it was supposed to be this big homecoming at the Bernabeu, positive performance against Celta Vigo. And it was far from. But the thing about the Xabi Alonso situation, it's obviously not just his fault. And the Madridises aren't just blaming Xabi. They're blaming the players as well. They're not putting the effort in. But in general, it's a huge crisis. Mass game crisis, as you said earlier. Yeah, it's terrible.

7:04Alan Shearer:I actually went to Madrid myself last week. I was like a talking head for a documentary film on the Hand of God game in 1986. And I was doing a section of it with Jorge Valdano, who was obviously at the club for many, many, many years, both as a player and up in the Balco. I was telling to him, what do you think about Xavi Lanz? He said, no, I think Xavi Lanz is a really good coach. He says, I think the problem is, he said, at the moment with Real Madrid is that they could replace Ronaldo. They didn't miss Ronaldo is what he said. They didn't miss Benzema. But do you know who they're really missing?

7:40Alan Shearer:He said Tony Kroos and Luka Modric. He said because that double pivot that they had always made they were in control of the game. And at the moment, they haven't got that. He said they've got lots of good individual players in midfield areas, but Bellingham's not a pivot and neither is, I suppose, Goulet, where Chalmene, I think he's young, he's not that sort of status as a player at the moment. He said that they're really missing that control of the game, the intelligence that Kroos and Modric would provide in there. And it makes sense to me. Yeah. I actually read that Xavi Alonso originally wanted Martin Zubemendi.

8:16Alan Shearer:Yeah, he said that as well. Oh, did he? He said that as well. Yeah, because I was going to say he's the type of player that Madrid team needs and do not currently have. But still, all these excuses and blaming the referee and he's saying, Eder Militao got injured but these aren't really valid excuses that Real Madrid team should be winning and I The referee was one of those demonstrative sort of referees wasn't it that you get there in Spain kind of brandishing you know yellow cards I remember one or two of those refs there they're like yellow card and then off you go and he's like hands are flying around everywhere and all that sort of stuff I mean I think it was eight yellow cards and three red Yep Alvaro Carreras I think said something offensive which he deemed offensive But I don't know what I think about that.

9:01I think, you know, sort of just get on with the game there. No, you're going to get a little bit of abuse.

9:06Alan Shearer:Well, I mean, I don't like the abuse of referees in football. I don't like it. I've always been uncomfortable with it. And I actually think if there was a kind of worldwide global effort to end it by showing yellow cars to people immediately, that players would then understand that they can't do that. It'd be carnage for about a month. There'd be lots of games of red cards, but then players will go, I know I can't abuse a referee. And there's no excuse to abuse, abusing a referee. You know, you can show your disappointment. You say, come on ref or no, it's the, come on, you know that. But if you start like getting in his face and hurling abuse and, you know, swearing at a referee, I don't, I don't think that's acceptable.

9:52Alan Shearer:And I think the, the game should have done, occasionally they've done it, but they've lasted about a week and they never really, carry it on. So I think that's something that the game needs to address. So I'm not going to excuse the Madrid players there and blame the referee for actually that because no one should have to take abuse for trying to do what they believe is an honest job. When Fran Garcia sent off, Xabi Alonso was swearing at Fran Garcia as he came off. He said, no me jodas. Okay, it's not actually, they use that word a lot in Spain. like joder macho which is fuck sex it's like for fuck sex yeah but I don't think it's sort of as as aggressive although fuck sex not aggressive yeah Spanish swear words are great I really go for it full on if you do the literal translation of a lot of the Spanish swearing it's crazy you go what did he just say I'm not even going to go there let's not say them let's not say them my mother's watching although she wouldn't understand so it's fine Well, that's good.

10:56Anyway, crisis at the Bernabeu. There was an emergency meeting at the final whistle. What's that? Yes, yes. The men in power stayed behind and discussed where to go next, I guess with Shabby, with the whole situation.

11:13Alan Shearer:So, huge, huge game at home against Manchester City. No Trent Alexander-Arnold either. I know. Because he dubbed thigh strain in the week. Left a doctor. Yeah, it's such a shame because he was just finding his form again. Getting himself into the team, he was starting to ping his long balls around. And then another setback, he's out for a couple of months. So that's a real shame. I don't think we can let this game go by not mentioning Teltavigo, who did tremendously. And Williot Svedberg, two goals. Great name, great goals. Both of them. The first one was like such a deft, clever little finish.

11:51Alan Shearer:And even the second one, cool as you like. 21-year-old Swede, been there a couple of years, came off the bench in the game and did that in the Bernabeu, imagine. His first La Liga goal for the first one, which was absolutely what a finish that was. And then the second, a good play, but really, really poor from Real Madrid. It sort of summed up their whole performance. Sort of giving up, weren't they? That's what it looked like to me anyway. Not good. Not good. I mean, I've been quite surprised with the way Javi Alonso's formations as well, personally. I think that it's almost a 4-4-2 at times, quite a narrow 4-4-2.

12:30There's no real identity.

12:32Alan Shearer:It's just that it's not the way he's played with Leverkusen all the way along. He's kind of played, I know he played three at the back and like wing backs playing really high, but he's not really played that. I wonder why. I would just think maybe he thinks you can't be Real Madrid and play three, possibly, you know, some people will call it five at the back. Maybe it's that different when you're at Leverkusen playing against, you know, the likes of Bayern Munich where you're not the giant. But when you're the giant, it's hard to play. And it might get seen as being slightly negative. I don't know.

13:06Alan Shearer:Trying to fit in, obviously, the same problem that Ancelotti had, trying to fit in Mbappe and Vinicius Junior into the system. that he does seem to have made that work, certainly from Bape. Both of them are playing slightly unnatural positions to what they're accustomed to, but it's not really worked the last few weeks either. So, I mean, it's a tough job, particularly for a young, still relatively inexperienced manager, however successful you've been to form a club. Yeah, huge amount of pressure, huge amount of pressure for Xabi Alonso. And I think the manner of the defeat, the fact it was Celta Vigo at home Celta hadn't beaten Real Madrid in La Liga since 2014 as well so really really disappointed for them and now worrying they don't have any fullbacks so I know it's not going to be easy moving forward either really really tough job for Xabi Alonso yeah I've just got the marker headline here una final para Xabi it says una derrota ante el City puede hacer explotar su proyecto So it's just saying that if they lose to Manchester City, the project is going to explode.

14:19Not dramatic at all. That's not like them, is it?

14:23Alan Shearer:La Marca. They've actually listed. So they're talking about possible replacements. They've said Zidane. They've said Jurgen Klopp and Alvaro Arbeloa, who currently manages Castilla. Yeah. So we'll see. We'll see. But not good. Yeah. Big week ahead for Xabi Alonso. big week Barcelona on the other hand put five past Betis as is Barcelona's style these days they conceded a few as well let's have a look at them Barcelona held on to top spot in La Liga with a win over Atletico Madrid in midweek now they look to stretch their lead for 24 hours at least by winning at Real Betis Real Betis will be a test they've only lost twice in the league this season and they're threatening early on here This is Anthony.

15:13Alan Shearer:It's Anthony who scores. And inside ten minutes, Barcelona are struggling away from home again.

15:25Alan Shearer:Lamal nicely worked round the corner to Jules Koundé. Ferran Torres. Barcelona weren't behind for long.

15:36Alan Shearer:Koundé again has set off on that right-hand side. it's towards Ferran Torres a rapid fire turnaround for Barcelona from 1-0 down to 2-1 up in the blink of an eye

15:54Alan Shearer:Rooney Bargy's cross and a very well controlled volley from Ferran Torres

16:04Alan Shearer:controlled it nicely and finding Rooney Bargy Oh, that's brilliant from Bagi. He supplied the second and now he has thrashed in Barcelona's third.

16:21Pedri. Torres.

16:24Alan Shearer:It's opened up for Ferran Torres. And via deflection has found its way in.

16:37Alan Shearer:Marcus Rashford shoots, it's hit Mark Bartra might come back to Rashford Marcus Rashford round the goalkeeper runs out of road it's going to be checked does hit the hand of Mark Bartra, albeit off his hip first penalty given is going to give Barcelona the opportunity of a fifth. Laminya Mal coolly slots it home and Barcelona are surging to victory.

17:15Alan Shearer:It'll be Pablo Fornaz to swing in the corner. It's gone all the way through. Turned in at the back post. This one's not going to count.

17:27Alan Shearer:It's going to be Pablo Fornaz to supply the corner, it's gone all the way through, and Llorente's pulled one back. Far too little too late, but Real Betis have their second.