Real Madrid Focus - One down two to go for Real

Back in September, Jose Mourinho had a yarn that Sporting Gijon coach Manolo Preciado was helping Barcelona win the title. He wasn’t wrong.

Preciado’s plucky Sporting side inflicted Mou’s first league defeat on home soil in 150 games and with it delivered the final, fatal cut to Real’s hopes of taking la Liga away from Catalonia.

With Barcelona narrowly edging out Villarreal 1-0 at El Madrigal, Los Blancos trail Blaugrana by eight points meaning Barca will likely have to lose at least three of their remaining eight fixtures for Madrid to have any chance denying Pep Guardiola a hat-trick of league wins.

Such an implosion seems unthinkable given that the champions have lost just twice in their last 68 league outings, leading for Mourinho to concede it will be ‘practically impossible’ for his side to reclaim top spot from here.

Prior to the game Madrid had boasted a formidable home record winning all fourteen times hosting and firing in 46 goals. But without Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Kaka and Xabi Alonso, los Merengues created little clear cut and what they did they wasted. A clinical breakaway finish from Manuel de la Cuevas did for them ten minutes from time. Minus its midas touches, Madrid’s attack couldn’t fashion a reply.

And with it went Jose Mourinho’s incomparable home record which deserves ultimate recognition. The biblical run across 150 matches in nine years with four different teams in four different countries whilst earning six league titles and eight other domestic trophies is one of the finest managerial feats of all time. The ever decreasing few who still disclaim Mourinho should take note and appreciate.

With league aspirations dim and distant, Mourinho will now use his repertoire to make the side an even bigger threat in Europe. Ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s visit on Tuesday there remains doubts about the fitness of a few key assets namely Ronaldo and Benzema. The relative ray of light from their current standing is that squads can now be specifically primed for continental deployment.

The league is now a fruitless pursuit so the full depth of the squad can be rationed out for the remainder of the season, including the potential Champions League semi with Barca. Perversely if Real do take their foot off the pedal they then hand Guardiola the chance to rest men his end, lending more intrigue to a potentially pistols drawn semi with no league agendas to distract.

European football is perhaps the immediate quick fix Real need to get over the Gijon loss and Mourinho was in positive vibe ahead of meeting Harry Redknapp’s side, “Do I think Tottenham will beat Madrid? No. It is my opinion that we are the better team and I am confident we will progress over the two legs.”

Whether he’s so sure he’ll progress over two legs against Barca is another question but one he’ll be likely answering soon enough. Mourinho also muttered in futility about mathematics but the simple calculation is one down, two left, only one will do.

Drogba to Madrid shows Mourinho mindset

There seems to be more than a concerted press April fools joke in reports that Real Madrid are lining up a summer bid for Chelsea’s Didier Drogba.

Back page transfer tales both in Spain and England have suggested the Bernabeu money-men are weighing up a £15m purchase of the Ivorian hitman to appease relations with coach Jose Mourinho.

The Special One wasn’t particularly impressed when his side began the campaign with just two front-line strikers and those fears were realised before the turn of the year when Gonzalo Higuain was injured leaving los Blancos with just the previously erratic Karim Benzema to spearhead the attack.

Benzema has since been a revelation, scoring freely in la Liga and the Champions League but once Emmanuel Adebayor’s temporary stay comes to an end, Mourinho will be back in the hunt for another goal-getter to help pursue Barcelona.

That has meant a ‘who’s-who’ of forward names being linked with a move to the capital, but the suggestions are that Mourinho has illicitly requested his former warhorse Drogba. Not willing to upset the Portuguese tactician any further, Florentino Perez is expected to sanction the coup.

Perennially around this time - and especially during moribund international breaks - speculation surfaces about Mourinho’s happiness at whichever club he happens to be at, with whispers from various quarters suggesting he’ll be seeking a new post. The strike-rate of such rumours are debatable, yet four clubs in seven years and a host of potential and willing suitors means that a move elsewhere can never be categorically dismissed.

Privy to Mourinho’s meanderings have been his relations with club executives and again we are led to believe it is not all smiles and tea-cups between Mourinho, Florentino Perez and Jorge Valdano. The dynamic duo will be acutely aware that Mourinho’s demise from Chelsea was hastened when he was gifted a present he didn’t want - Andrei Shevchenko - and things went downhill from there.

Procuring Drogba wouldn’t be hard with the Londoners likely to reshape significantly this summer, but such a transfer does ask questions about Mourinho’s long term strategies at clubs.

Drogba has just turned 33 and is in arguably his worst season in a Blues shirt. After scoring almost 40 goals last term, injuries, loss of form and the arrival of Fernando Torres means the former Marseille man has scored just six times from open play this season and just twice since the turn of the year.

A change can be as good as a rest for a footballer but it is difficult to see - should it happen - how Drogba’s signature can be anything other than an impact solution for Real. Ricardo Carvalho was bought under similar pretense and Drogba could only provide a season or two’s top class service and would present no re-sale value.

The immediacy of improving Real’s side is paramount to Mourinho’s logics, but do such short-term signings reflect on his long-term visions to stay in Madrid?