“We've conceded nine goals in our last three games and that's too many”

Real Madrid's Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti was critical of his team's defending and described as “normal concern” after two consecutive defeats against FC Barcelona (0-4) and AC Milan (1-3), which lead him to think that, “it is difficult to compete for titles" at the end of the season.
“The dressing room's atmosphere is good. Now, there will be a lot of criticism on the attitude, the training sessions.... What people think, the criticism, we have to accept it and be sure of the reality: that, now, we are not doing well. It is very difficult to reach the end of the season like this, we have to fix things. I said it on the first day of the season, we have to defend better because that is the key”, he said at the press conference.
“It may be that you have to look for solutions, I have to think to have a more balanced and more solid team. Without going crazy, but changing some tactical details that can improve things. We have to improve tactically, it's not a problem of the players we have,” added the 'Merengues' coach.
“The reality is that what you see on the pitch is that we are missing something, that the team is not able to show a good version, especially in the last two games. The concern is normal, the next few nights are going to be very long, but we have to improve things and try to find the solidity that we have had for a long time and that we are lacking. We have conceded 9 goals in the last three games and that is too much for a team that have built their strength on solidity,” he continued.
Ancelotti insisted on his team's defensive problem. “We have had many chances, but we have lacked a bit of accuracy, we could have scored more, but the ease with which the opposing team hurt us is the main problem we have to fix,” he analysed. “It is a characteristic of the team: last year, we were not first in this and we won the Champions League. We have to have more order and be more together. I can't say that my players are lazy, but, now, we are not able to do an effective collective work,” he continued.
“It's not the worst time since I came back. Every year, there are difficult moments when you have to endure, struggle and think. It's all within normality. This team has slumped very quickly in the last few games, but it's part of football, like the good thing about it is that you can react very quickly. Fortunately, we have another game in our stadium and we can try to get back to being last year's team,” he concluded.