Makelele slams Mourinho's Madrid after derby loss
Ex-Real Madrid midfielder Claude Makelele did not hold back on his former team's performance in its derby defeat to Atletico Madrid, saying they had "no gameplan and no ideas."
Madrid slipped to a 2-1 loss against its cross-city rival on Sunday, its second in the first seven games of the LaLiga campaign.
With defending champion Barcelona making a perfect start, Los Blancos are already six points off the title pace, and Makelele feels there are glaring issues in its side.
Dean Huijsen was sent off and conceded that spot-kick for denying Giuliano Simeone a clear goalscoring opportunity, though Madrid had been flat in attack even with 11 men on the pitch.
Makelele, who represented Madrid 145 times between 2000 and 2003, before working under Mourinho at Chelsea, was bemused by its lacklustre display.
"There is no understanding between the players, nor with the coach. Mourinho must talk to them," he said. "The team is weak, there is no gameplan and no clear ideas. There is nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing... Absolutely nothing. We must demand more from them."
In stark contrast to Madrid's stuttering performance, Atleti scored its second goal – via Jonathan David – at the end of an 18-pass move – the most for any goal scored by either team in a Madrid derby in LaLiga since at least 2005-2006.
Afterwards, Mourinho said "the story of the game" was an inept refereeing performance from Ortiz Arias, arguing both Lee Kang-in and Cristian Romero should have seen red for Atleti, the former for a high challenge on Federico Valverde and the latter for treading on Jude Bellingham.
Mourinho brought printed images of both incidents to his post-match press conference, prompting Atleti to hit back on social media, posting: "Stop referee harassment now."
But Makelele was not interested in playing the blame game, saying: "The problem is not the referee; there is an obvious deficiency in the team."
After the extended international break, Madrid hosts Villarreal in LaLiga on 10 October, before visiting Roma in the Champions League four days later.
