Sergio Ramos has warned his teammates that they will need to avoid a repetition of their second 45 minutes against Granada if they want to be crowned La Liga champions.
Real Madrid took a two-goal lead before the half-time whistle following strikes from Ferland Mendy and Karim Benzema in the opening 20 minutes. However, the second half seemed to be a different ball altogether as the home team played with intensity and took the game to Zinedine Zidane’s side area.
Darwin Machis pulled one back for the Diego Martinez’s team, but goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and Ramos were on hand to deny Antonin and Ramon Azeez from costing Los Blancos all three points.
And ahead of Thursday’s home game against Villarreal, the Madrid skipper has warned his side against sleeping off in the second part of their games.
“We let our guard down a little bit in the second half when we saw it was 2-0,” Ramos told Movistar. “Instead of going to kill the game and looking for the third, we relaxed.
“These things cannot happen because anyone can beat you if you don’t keep the intensity. We’ve got to concentrate for 90 minutes. We won the first half but lost the second – maybe that’s something to reflect on for the future.
“We let a goal in after a few games without doing so. It’s a good victory for our spirits but it comes with a bad feeling after a bad second half. Every team falls into this error sometimes, not only Real Madrid, but we have to make sure we don’t repeat it.
“It’s inevitable, but we got the three points in the end. We’ve got to keep the same rhythm for 90 minutes. We can’t let our guard down.”
Despite being four points clear of Barcelona two matches to go, Ramos also urged his mates to attend to each game as a final as they had reiterated prior to the resumption of the league.
“We can’t relax. We’re a bit closer. We’ve got to keep our desire to take the league. We’re close but we’ll carry on,” the Spain international said. “There are still points to play for and we depend on ourselves. The objective from the beginning after the break was to win every game and we are going to try. The team deserves a lot of merit for being up there and keeping these results going.
“It would mean a lot to be champions. It’s a reward for consistency of a whole year. Maybe we had a point of reflection during the break, that we had to come back and react. We prepared very well, we all worked hard at home. Hopefully on Thursday we can celebrate it.”
