Carlo Ancelotti reacts to Real Madrid's crushing 4-0 defeat to Barcelona

Real Madrid suffered a crushing 4-0 defeat to Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabéu in La Liga today. With a ferocious second-half performance, Robert Lewandowski scored twice in three minutes before Lamine Yamal and Raphina secured all three points for the Catalan side.

After scoring five goals against Borussia Dortmund in the UEFA Champions League in midweek, Real Madrid wasted several chances in this high-risk game, particularly in the first half.

Kylian Mbappe, who made his El Clasico debut, failed several times in front of goal. The France international also had two goals ruled out for offside in each half. Jude Bellingham, who has yet to score a goal for Los Blancos this season, and Vinicius Jr. also missed important chances for the home team.

Today's crushing defeat leaves Real Madrid six points behind leaders Barcelona in the La Liga table. Furthermore, Los Blancos' 42-game unbeaten streak in Spain's top flight is now over.

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti admitted in his commentary on today's El Clasico that his team lacked precision in front of goal.

“We played with intensity in the first half,” said Ancelotti. “We could have scored, but we lacked accuracy.” When they scored, they scored two goals that took all our energy away. We took more risks at the back and they had a lot more chances on the counterattack. We did very well for 60 minutes and we have to forget the last 30.” (H/T BBC Sport)

Despite the 4-0 defeat, the Italian coach doesn't believe the result justifies “throwing everything in the trash”.

“The season is very long, we must not give up but learn,” explained Ancelotti. “We did it last time and now we're going to do the same thing to try to come back and compete.” (H/T Forbes)

With Rodrygo and Thibaut Courtois out through injury this week, Ancelotti was forced to make tactical and personnel changes ahead of this game. However, the former AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain coach has no regrets about his decisions.

“I don’t regret my plan,” admitted Ancelotti. “I've been in football for 48 years so I'm not wrong when I say the first half was good. This is different than the defeat against Lille. We were very bad that day. Today we competed.” (H/T Fabrizio Romano on X)

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Real Madrid fans on X are having a meltdown after their devastating 4-0 El Clasico defeat to Barcelona