Beyond the halfway point in the La Liga season and one statistic has unsurprisingly remained consistent from the previous eight at the Santiago Bernabeau; Cristiano Ronaldo is Real Madrid’s top scorer in La Liga this campaign. This is where the constancy ends for Real this year and this stat alone, in fact, highlights the sheer, alarming chasm to Barcelona.

Ronaldo’s scoring tally for the season currently sits at 4 La Liga goals (in 14 starts) and his side’s home defeat last weekend to Villarreal confirmed Los Blancos are trailing league leaders Barcelona by an extraordinary 19 points; after Barcelona ensured 3 points with a 4-2 win at Real Sociedad, coming from two goals down at the Anoeta on Sunday evening.

Last Saturday’s home defeat to Villarreal was only symptomatic of Real’s ongoing issues that are facing Zinedine Zidane. As Pablo Fornais produced a floated lob over the helpless Keylor Navas in the 87^th-minute, immediately following the Mexican’s point-blank stop from Enes Unal, Real were left to stew on repeated frustrations felt in their blunt attack.

“Anyone who says we played badly has no idea about football”, Toni Kroos insisted. The German midfielder’s frustration stemming from the fact that his side had produced 28 shots in this game alone. But only 7 of these had forced Villarreal goalkeeper Sergio Asenjo into saves. Two penalty appeals turned down and one Ronaldo shot that hit the bar further summarised the recurring theme.

Villarreal’s players celebrated wildly following their win at the home of the European Champions, as they had every right to. This was the first time they had won at the Bernabeu, at the 19^th attempt. “We’re very happy- this is historic”, Javier Calleja, their coach said delightedly, after the game.

Zidane on the other side of the corridor bemoaned his side’s current crisis, “This is a hard, terrible blow. We did everything we could but the ball just didn’t want to go in. There’s no explanation”.

Many will point to last summer that has proved the downturn in their success. Real have clearly lost their chemistry and quality in depth since the 2017 summer window. Despite the recruitment of promising youngsters like Theo Hernandez and Dani Ceballos, the sales of influential squad players like James Rodriguez, Alvaro Morata and even Mariano Lopez have disrupted the first-team at the Bernabeau.

Ronaldo’s recent response to criticism was “Go look it up on Google…the numbers do not lie”, (in reference to his own goal-scoring record) can be aptly applied to his club’s predicament on the pitch, being as they are admittedly, damming for Zidane’s side. At the halfway point of this season, Real have already lost more games than in their entire 2016/17 title-winning campaign; 11 less points than after this weekend last year. Saturday’s home defeat to Villarreal was their second consecutive, and third in total, home loss this season- the last time they experienced back-to-back home losses in La Liga was eight years ago.

Truly remarkably, this is only the second time in their history they have been this far adrift domestically and in fact, sit closer, in terms of points, to the relegation zone than to the league leaders (16 points above Deportivo La Coruna in 18^th).

10 points behind their city rivals Atletico and 8 behind Marcelinho’s Valencia, domestic Champions League qualification and the preservation of that prized European elite trophy must now be the necessities if Zidane is to save a disastrous campaign.

For their star Ronaldo, success will be determined by a talent he has always possessed in spades- the ability to produce and make the difference on the big occasion; and if the Portuguese number 7 is to net the winner to eliminate Paris Saint Germain from the Champions League last round of 16, just watch his plaudits re-convene in the ever so familiar fervent, devout narrative for the superstar once again.