I Cannot Reproach My Players – Zidane

Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said his side’s worrisome finishing was to blame as they dropped two points in Sunday evening’s 2-2 La Liga draw at home to Valencia — but he supprteded both Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale after both were jeered by the ever-demanding Bernabeu crowd.

After Benzema and Bale were booed for fluffing chances, Valencia debutant Geoffrey Kondogbia put his side 2-1 up from the edge of the box after a Madrid defence missing suspended Sergio Ramos and injured Raphael Varane was destroyed again.#

The Los Blancos coach told the postgame news conference at the Bernabeu: “I cannot be happy with the result, although we played excellently and deserved more today.

“We have dropped two points, but I am very proud of the players. At 1-2 it is not easy, but we have fought until the end, and had chances to win the game.

“The difficult part is to make the chances and today we had seven or eight clear chances. We should have won the game, but we did not. We know that La Liga is very long and this will happen again.”

“The fans here do what they wish,” Zidane said. “The important thing for us is that Karim gets chances.

He did not score them today, but that’s not important. This is football. Sometimes the ball does not go in. But we do not have to give an opinion on what the fans think.”

“He is an important player in this squad,” Zidane said. “Gareth is Gareth. We will keep working, and keep counting on Gareth, like all the others. That’s all.”

“I hope Asensio keeps going like this, but it does not affect Gareth,” he said. “Gareth had his chances to score today, it didn’t happen. But this is football, I cannot reproach my players, just the opposite.

“I am very happy with the game they played. In La Liga it is very long, we will drop points other times too. We were up against a team who were very well organised, made it difficult for us. There were two good teams on the pitch today.”