El Clasico: 3 reasons why Real Madrid lost 5-1 to Barcelona

#3 Julen Lopetegui getting it spectacularly wrong

FC Barcelona v Real Madrid CF - La Liga

Julen Lopetegui keeps selecting a starting 11 that baffles me every week as he always seems to be favoring the big names instead of people in better form and more hunger to try and impose themselves on the match.

In my first piece, I wrote about how Dani Ceballos starting tonight could be absolutely magnificent, and he was an unused substitute despite showing better form than a lot of players in the follow up to this game. He made the change and brought on Vasquez at halftime for Raphael Varane, and the team looked the better for it, but instead of pressing on and mounting the pressure on Barcelona, he did not make another change till Real were down by 2 goals again with 14 minutes to go.

Sure, a lot of things out of his control have gone against him, but what he does have in control is the squad selection, and I felt he would be the coach to make the tough calls and bench the underperforming stars for people like Ceballos,Mariano, Vinicius etc. who are raring to go but have been denied minutes by the presence of more established names in world football.

Things are dire at Real Madrid, and sadly this could have been Julen's last game in charge or the one that seals his fate as I don't believe the board would feel after tonight's result that he is the right man to usher this club in a new era.