Real Madrid: 5 burning questions from loss to Manchester City

When will Zinedine Zidane make better subs?

Zinedine Zidane needs to come under the microscope even more than Raphael Varane or any player in this match. Because at the end of the day, Zidane chose to engage in a risky strategy of only playing it out the back, start a less-than-fully-healthy Eden Hazard, and make unwise substitutions.

As great as Zidane is at man-management, talent evaluation, and, yes, tactics, he is woefully inept at making substitutions. It seems like he either forgets he can use substitutions until the 70th minute or has self-imposed a substitution mandate.

Real Madrid have one of the deepest squads in European football. They can call on Vinicius Junior, Luka Jovic, Marco Asensio, and Isco from the bench, and those four players could pretty much walk into any other team as a starter.

Against Manchester City, only Asensio entered the game before the 80th minute. Neither Isco nor Vinicius even played, even though they were literally the best players in the first leg, with Isco scoring the lone goal in that match.

Zidane has to improve on this in 2020-2021. If not, he will continue to leave points on the table for Real Madrid, because this club has so many subs capable of changing a game. You know, if they get more than 10 minutes!