Real Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini was less than pleased with his
side's performance in their 2-0 win over Malaga on Sunday evening.
Malaga had only moved out of the relegation zone last week
and had not won away all season but they created the better
opportunities in the opening 30 minutes at the Bernabeu.
A mixture of poor finishing, good goalkeeping from Iker
Casillas and the woodwork kept the Andalusian side out though, and
Madrid got their noses in front in the 35th minute when Cristiano
Ronaldo finished off a well-worked move.
Ronaldo then made it 2-0 four minutes later with a blistering
finish and Madrid, with their tails up, looked capable of adding
more goals either side of half-time.
They were unable to keep that momentum going, though, and
Malaga had already started to look threatening again before Madrid
were reduced to 10 men in the 70th minute when Ronaldo was sent
off.
Somewhat surprisingly it was actually Madrid who produced the
better chances in the final 20 minutes despite their numerical
disadvantage, and Xabi Alonso, Raul Albiol and Esteban Granero
could all have added further goals.
It was a good end to the match for Madrid, but that and their
brief spell of dominance in the first half did not distract
Pellegrini from seeing the bigger picture.
"I'm not happy with how we played. We were too
individualistic at times against a good team that had not lost in
nine games. We scored two good goals but it's not been a game that
I liked," said Pellegrini, whose side reduced the gap to leaders
Barcelona back to five points with what was their 10th successive
home win this term.
"We've had a perfect home run in the first half of the
season. We know we can improve and in order to do that we must take
it game by game."
Regarding the dismissal of Ronaldo, who was shown a straight
red card after his swinging elbow caught Malaga defender Patrick
Mtiliga in the face, leaving the Denmark international with a
broken nose, Pellegrini admits he did not get a good view of the
incident.
"I couldn't see it. He (Ronaldo) had a great game, scoring
two goals, but unfortunately he was mixed up in that incident that
got him sent off," said the Chilean, who does not know what
sanction will be handed out to the Portugal international.
"First we'll have to see what the referee writes in his
report. The competition committee will have to decide if it was an
aggression or not."
