Sport - "Talking of a crisis is melodramatic" - Ancelloti

Counting the friendly against Milan, Real Madrid have now suffered three straight defeats.

"Talking of a crisis is melodramatic. There is another ninety minutes of this knockout tie to go" reminded Carlo Ancelotti.

The Italian coach explained Ronaldo's initial bench warming, simply saying: "He was tired, so did not start".

He believes the 1-0 was key: "We controlled the game until the penalty. We lacked depth. Playing against Atleti is tough, we needed to play more direct football".

The forwards failed to find the back of the net: "It was hard to find opportunities. Benzema and Bale tried, but they didn't manage it".

Ancelotti is optimistic: "We don't have much chance of going through from this knockout tie but we'll give it everything we have".

Khedira was in the starting line-up: "He had a good match. He didn't make any mistakes and held his position well".