Tchouaméni's jab at Ancelotti over Arda Güler: 'Now we can see...'

Real Madrid has achieved a perfect record of victories right before the September international break. The last of those three matches, the hard-fought game against Real Mallorca, has highlighted several players. In addition to Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius, who always draw the attention of all Madridists, ArdaGüler is another of the most noteworthy.

It's no coincidence that the Turkish midfielder was chosen as the MVP of this match played at Santiago Bernabéu. During his time in the mixed zone, in a brief interview for Real Madrid TV, Aurélien Tchouaméni specifically pointed to his teammate from Altindag. The Turkish "15" has now become a regular in the starting line-ups.

The words of the French "14" regarding this striking change are very clear: "Now he's playing a bit more, so we can see his great soccer talent". It's clear that these words are a direct compliment both to the European footballer and to XabiAlonso, who's responsible for making Güler one of the team's creative references.

They can also be interpreted as a challenge to Carlo Ancelotti: the Reggiolo coach, although he had Arda Güler for two seasons, barely gave him minutes. Not many shared the Italian coach's opinion, who believed that the young talent needed to improve his defensive commitment in order to earn more playing time.

On the rise

Even from the Valdebebas offices, they drew attention to the underuse of such an important soccer resource at the service of the first team. The retirement of Toni Kroos meant a very significant blow to the attacking creativity of the Merengue squad, a problem that Carlo Ancelotti couldn't solve during the past season.

Many expected, including the board led by Florentino Pérez, that the veteran coach would anticipate the decision that Xabi Alonso has made this very summer. Because the Basque coach understands, without Toni Kroos and without Luka Modric in the squad, that Arda Güler must be the "helmsman" of the team when it comes to organizing on the field.

This new role and position in Santiago Bernabéu locker room fit perfectly for Arda Güler. The latest sign of such significant improvement is his performance in the Real Madrid-Real Mallorca match, with one goal... and a goal and an assist disallowed after separate video assistant referee reviews.

Aurélien Tchouaméni isn't the first to highlight the difference between Carlo Ancelotti and Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid. Even during the Club World Cup, after the draw in the debut against Saudi Al-Hilal, the comments from Thibaut Courtois regarding the change applied to the squad were revealing.