The inclusion of reported Everton target Isco in Zinedine Zidane’s starting XI before Sunday’s 4-1 defeat to Valencia left the Real Madrid squad baffled and confused, according to Marca.
You know you are struggling for form when even those you’ve shared a dressing room with for years are questioning your place in the team.
Isco was arguably the most influential attacking midfielder in world football back in 2017. But the Spanish international looks a fading shadow of his brilliant best these days.
So much so that, according to the Mirror, Real Madrid are willing to sell the four-time Champions League winner for as little as £18 million next year.
Isco is desperate to rebuild his ailing reputation and, the report adds, would welcome the chance to reunite with Carlo Ancelotti and James Rodriguez at Everton – a club who have giddily handed out clean slates to big name players who lost their way at Madrid or Barcelona.
Isco was handed the rarest of starts – just his third of the season – as Madrid travelled to an out-of-sorts, crisis-hit Valencia side on Sunday.
His inclusion in the XI at the expense of the ever-reliable Kroos certainly raised plenty of eyebrows, both in the media and, according to Marca, in the Madrid dressing room.
They were left ‘baffled’ by Zidane’s decision to drop the German metronome, the man who makes Madrid tick, for a player who has toiled for the best part of two years now.
It is fair to say Isco, after producing the most anonymous of performances as Madrid were humiliated by a Valencia side many have tipped for a relegation battle, did little to earn the respect of his peers at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Like James before him, Isco looks a player crying out for a move.
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