ASENSIO'S WONDER STRIKE HELPS REAL MADRID CLAIM A NARROW WIN AGAINST GRANADA

Damn! That was a close match. On Sunday night we faced Granada with an opportunity to go 6 points clear at the top of the table and to respond to the defeat we suffered against Athletic Club which saw us crashing out of the Copa del Rey in the quarter-finals. 

To be honest, I was quite nervous coming into this match as I just had a feeling that this might be one of those games where we are in complete control but don't have our shooting boots on. I feared that we might even end up conceding one and blow this opportunity off. While we did end up taking all the 3 points thanks to Asensio's peach of a goal, however, it was far from a convincing win.

Taking criticism from the previous match against Athletic Club, Ancelotti decided to make some changes to his starting 11 and include Camavinga and Isco. While this is a good sign as quite often we have seen that Don Carlo, more or less, sticks with the same players in every match, however, I still don't understand why Hazard and Jović are not getting the chances they deserve. How are they supposed to prove themselves if they don't get enough playing time despite being fit? I really think Ancelotti needs to make better use of the workforce that is present at his disposal. With our legendary midfield trio ageing, Carlo needs to manage their playing time accordingly by giving enough chances to players like Camavinga, Valverde, Jović and Eden Hazard.

Talking about the starting 11, we had Courtois between the sticks, Carvajal-Militão-Alaba-Marcelo as our back four, a midfield trio of Modrić-Camavinga-Kroos and a trio of Asensio-Isco-Rodrygo upfront. Why on earth is Rodrygo being preferred over Hazard?!

Granada came into this game on the back of 2 defeats, but it's also worthy of noting that in the past month they held Barcelona to a draw and the month before they had beaten Atletico on their home turf. However, Real Madrid has done very well against Granada In their previous meetings. The Los Blancos have won their last 13 games against Granada scoring atleast 4 goals in 5 of their previous meets.

Talking about the match, we saw an end to end game in the 1st half. Both teams had their chances, the visitors went close first as a Suarez half-volley was saved by Courtois before Neva nearly toed the ball into his own net from a Carvajal cross. We gave way too much space to the opposition and a lot of that can be blamed on our Captain, Marcelo, as he couldn't track back that often which gave the opposition quite the advantage. Asensio and Isco also went close on a number of occasions, however, both the teams went into the break goalless.

In the 2nd half, we got to see a sense of emergency from Real Madrid who were desperate to find a winner. It was a long time coming and it was damn special when it came. Asensio gave his side the lead in the 74th minute with a sublime strike from 25 yards out which ended up in the bottom left corner of the goal. The ball came out to him after Militão dispossessed Raba and he just let it fly towards the goal. There came the winning goal and there came off his shirt. Hazard, Jović and Valverde were substituted in the 2nd half and looked lively throughout the course of the remaining game.

Grinding out a win on a day when you're not playing your best football is what separates a world-class team from an average team and this is why I believe Real Madrid will clinch their 35th La Liga title this season. However, with the match against PSG just on the horizon, Real Madrid will really need to take it up a notch.