La Liga 2016/17: Real Madrid 3 - 3 Las Palmas: 5 Talking Points

#5. Is Zinedine Zidane just a lucky manager?

You would have expected the fifth talking point to be about the rather contentious refereeing on the night; Sergio Ramos’ and Dani Castellano’s penalty infrigements were both judged rather too harshly, but they weren’t in anyway disimilar to the one that went against Bruno Soriano when Madrid came back from 2-0 down to win 3-2. Alvaro Morata, meanwhile, had a hattrick chalked off by the linesman’s flag – on one occasion, the poor lad was actually a good yard onside (the ref thought thaat Ronaldo, who made the killer pass, was offside – he wasn’t, either).

But more than the systemic poor refereeing which has affected many-a-team, and many-a-match this season, let’s try and make our last talking point match-specific.

On a night when Luis Enrique called it quits after three years of being called lucky (he is, kind of, isn’t he? How do you not win with a front three of Messi, Suarez and Neymar at your disposal?) the question of whether Zinedine Zidane is just a lucky manager raised it’s ugly head once again.

Zizou’s record is still amazing, hell, he even created a record today; his Madrid side have now scored in 45 consecutive games in all competitions; a new Spanish benchmark, beating the one Barcelona set 70 odd years ago! But the question persists, without those late goals from Ronaldo and/or Ramos what would the record say. Pro-Zizou fans will point out that the best managers always knew how to grind out results, especially when their stars are underperforming and the fact that he’s had a number of key people missing for quite a while now.

Anti-Zizou fans, meanwhile, just need to point at the fact that Madrid still do not have any tangible sense of identity or tactics about them; and the fact that aura of invincibility that they once carried is slpping away and say “I rest my case”. Either way, it’s a tough one to call – and while Zidane will always trump Enrique when it comes to man-management, the question of whether he is just a lucky manager will haunt his legacy unless he does something drastic about it