Zinedine Zidane has criticised his Real Madrid players’ concentration after his side lost 2-1 to an underachieving Valencia.
Los Blancos remain first in La Liga, one point ahead of second placed Barcelona, but have opened the door to a comeback from the Catalan side by failing to cancel out two early goals from Valencia at the Mestalla Stadium.
Simone Zaza, who endured a torrid loan spell with West Ham in the first half of the season, opened the scoring after just four minutes with an impressive volley on the turn before Fabian Orellana added another just five minutes later.
“The truth is we lost the game in 10 minutes,” Real manager Zinedine Zidane said in his post-match press conference. “We had 80 minutes to rescue the game and tried but we lacked many things today."
“We started well with the ball, we had chances but we made two errors and they scored two goals.”
The Frenchman believes his side need to “be more focused” in their upcoming games, adding: “If you don’t concentrate, you get punished. In those 10 minutes, we weren’t clever or ready. We can’t win games just by turning up.”
Madrid enjoyed more than 70% of the possession and had 22 shots but couldn’t capitalise on their dominance, despite Cristiano Ronaldo’s headed goal just before half-time giving Los Blancos a glimmer of hope.
The 44-year-old Frenchman hopes to turn his team’s fortunes around and ensure that they don’t suffer a similar lapse of concentration on Sunday against Villarreal.
“We’re not looking for excuses,” he said. “We had a chance to put points on the board but we didn’t do so. We have to rest up and think about Sunday’s game.”