Real Madrid’s fickle fans highlight why Paul Clement must think about next move

A DIFFERENT LEAGUE

(Getty Images)

The letter calling for Carlo Ancelotti’s head didn’t take long to arrive. It was published in one Madrid paper in the same edition as the match report of the 4-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid last Saturday.

Ancelotti is apparently “running out of credit”. He won the European Cup nine months ago and Real Madrid are top of La Liga but no one is dwelling on the details.

Club president Florentino Perez went to Monday’s training session to tell the players to start playing as they were towards the end of last year. Never mind that last year, Luka Modric, Pepe and Sergio Ramos were all fit. Or that it really should be Ancelotti giving the team talks.

Cristiano Ronaldo reacts as rivals Atletico score their fourth goal (Getty Images)

The post-mortem intensified with images of Cristiano Ronaldo’s birthday party on Saturday night. By all accounts it was a relatively sober affair. The video of Ronaldo singing along with guest artist Kevin Roldan did not look great but there were around 40 children among the invited and although there was a gaming table, guests played with fake money – five-dollar bills with a “3” and a “Golden Ball” on each one. A raucous descent into depravity it wasn’t.

Camera crews went back the next day and when a party hat was found discarded in a nearby tree, it made for a dramatic close-up for the lunchtime bulletins.

A dozen supporters protested outside the training ground and although by midweek their numbers had dwindled to one, he still made himself heard, shouting: “more balls, fewer parties” as Ronaldo sped away.

Hours later, Ronaldo was singing karaoke at his 30th birthday party (http://instagram.com/kevinroldankr)

There were even some “Mourinho tenia razon” (Mourinho was right) stickers plastered on a nearby lamppost. The inference being that this group of players need a firm hand, not the softly-softly approach favoured by Ancelotti.

It was suggested the club had got tough by fining Sami Khedira and James Rodriguez for being at the party while injured. It now seems they will be spared because both apparently “sat down during the whole event”.

Paul Clement attended the party, as did Ancelotti’s other assistant, Fernando Hierro. Clement will have been bemused by such a lengthy inquest into one party and one defeat for a team on top of the table.

Coming so soon after dismissing the Queen’s Park Rangers job interview offer, it will also have served as a reminder that in this most fickle of professions Madrid remain the most fickle of employers.

Paul Clement's future is tied to Ancelotti's - he will not stay if the Italian leaves (Getty Images)

John Toshack once said the coach’s job at Real Madrid was something you did for a couple of years and no more. You get in, you try to win some trophies, then you get out.

Ancelotti may yet guide the club to more trophies but he will eventually be consumed by the machine that used to devour a coach a season and will soon be demanding Zinedine Zidane takes over. Clement’s future is tied to Ancelotti’s. He will not form part of any Zidane backroom staff.

That is why, despite the theory that he dismissed the idea of leaving Real to join QPR last week without blinking, he did give it his consideration and it was the timing rather than the situation at Loftus Road that made it a non-starter. That will change if it is still there for the taking at the end of the season.

For all their problems, QPR are a Premier League team wired up to the intravenous drip of TV revenue that means if they stay up they’ll soon be due twice as much money from broadcasting as current Spanish champions Atletico Madrid. Far from being mad to consider it, as events in Madrid this week have shown, he would be mad not to.

Zinedine Zidane could be Real's next coach (Getty Images)

Espanyol strike threat reveals looming battle over TV money

That television deal, the one that means winning La Liga could earn you less than propping up the Premier League, has added to Spanish clubs’ desire to force a change in the law that will make it mandatory for Real Madrid and Barcelona to take a smaller proportion of the money.

Espanyol president Joan Collet reiterated the threat of a strike this week if the ruling People’s Party do not come good on a promise to pass a new law that will end the practice of each club negotiating its own deal. Espanyol earn around €28m (£21m) a year while the big two earn €140m (£104m) each. Both Barça and Real Madrid have indicated they are committed to a greater share of the spoils but the other clubs want it written into the statute books, not bickered over at the start of every season.

“We are prepared to stop the league if the government doesn’t act soon,” said Collet. With Barcelona close to agreeing a deal to sell their rights for next season separately and Real also in no rush to begin sharing, the signs are not good.