Real Madrid were able to beat Villarreal on their return to La Liga action on Saturday night. A 1-0 win was just about enough for Jose Mourinho's side to get the three points and keep within six points of Barcelona in the league table.
There were a bunch of surprises in the lineup that Mourinho chose for this game. The biggest one was obviously Vinícius Júnior being benched. Maybe that was just a precaution after a lengthy international break with so much travel, or maybe it was something completely different, but that was surprising.
One thing that wasn't surprising, though, was Fede Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni starting as the double pivot for Real Madrid. It is a combination of two players who do not provide a lot together, and even against Villarreal, they did not work well with each other. If you look at it individually, both Tchouameni and Valverde had decent performances, but from a collective midfield standpoint, there was so much left to be desired from these players.
Fede Valverde and Aurelien Tchouameni don't work well together
Villarreal were able to get past this Real Madrid midfield effortlessly. They were able to slice open these two with just one or two passes, which made it really difficult for the team's defense to keep everything in order. Fortunately, Real Madrid's defense and goalkeeper were really good on the night, but from a collective standpoint, Tchouameni and Valverde showed once again that they just do not work together.
They don't cover the ground well enough when they're on the pitch together, and when they do have the ball, they just are not able to control the play or work with any sort of synergy or chemistry. That is something that they should have had by now, considering they have been playing together for so many years. Even if you disregard the years with Toni Kroos, these two have still been playing together for the last three seasons. Judging by the way they usually play, it just does not seem like anything is working.
Mourinho simply isn't realising that, and as a result, so many of the other midfielders that he has have not been playing. They have not played a single match, have not started a single game since Aurelien Tchouameni came back from injury. Players like Bernardo Silva and Thiago Pitarch have not seen many minutes on the pitch.
Even Eduardo Camavinga, who had a really good international break, has barely played for Real Madrid this season after the introduction of Tchouameni, which begs the question: are Real Madrid making the wrong players into non-negotiable starters? The answer is as obvious as you would think.
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