Real Madrid’s season came to a stuttering end after a 2-0 at home to Real Betis on Sunday night.
Defeat at the Bernabeu means Los Blancos finished a whopping 19 points behind rivals Barcelona in what has been a miserable campaign.
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Real Madrid’s season has been one to forget
Back in March, Real were also unceremoniously dumped out of the Champions League by a rampant Ajax side.
Santiago Solari was brought in to steady the ship after Julen Lopetegui’s sacking, but the Argentine also received his P45 from Señor Florentino Perez.
The Real Madrid president turned to Zinedine Zidane to steady the ship and begin a rebuilding job which would help restore Real to the top of world football.
The Frenchman has reportedly demanded reassurances from Perez about his transfer budget for the summer window, with the Spanish giants keen to usher in a new era of ‘Galacticos’ to reassert their dominance.
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Paul Pogba and Eden Hazard are just two of the names linked with moves to the Bernabeu, with fellow Premier League superstar Christian Eriksen also reportedly a target.
News broke on Thursday that Mohamed Salah was a key target for Los Blancos, with Zidane keen to add the goals of Eintracht Frankfurt striker Luka Jovic.
Meanwhile, back in March, rumours suggesting Porto defender Eder Militao was closing in on a summer move were confirmed, which means he could replace Sergio Ramos in the long-term.
Of course, players will need to be sold in order to fund such a drastic overhaul, with as many as 17 players reportedly under threat.
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So how on earth could all these superstars fit onto one pitch next season?
Scroll down to see talkSPORT’s potential starting XI for Real Madrid next season.
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Is this how Real Madrid could look next year?
TALKING TACTICS
Even in his short managerial career, Zidane has tended to favour an attacking 4-3-3 formation at Real Madrid with a deep-lying midfielder acting as a pivot.
Having joined in 2013, Casemiro seemed destined to stay in the reserves under Rafael Benitez. But when the Spaniard was sacked, the Brazilian became the linchpin for Los Merengues.
His discipline has allowed Zidane’s teams to effectively leave three at the back as the full-backs were granted the license to bomb forward at will to supplement the attacks with overlapping runs.
For years, Marcelo and Carvajal terrified opposition full-backs with their rampaging runs on the outside as Madrid looked to suffocate their opponents and this looks set to continue for the time being as the overhaul focusses ahead of them
Of course, the full-backs are given room to operate when supplementing inverted wingers – roles previously held by Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
But Ronaldo’s move to Juventus and Bale’s decline in the Spanish capital have deeply hindered Zidane in his second stint as can be seen by their starting XI from the defeat to Betis on Sunday.
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The Real Madrid starting XI from the game against lacks dynamism and pace
Despite featuring plenty of skill and technical ability, only Vinicius Junior possesses the sort of devastating pace which strikes fear into defenders.
The swashbuckling and scathing style which garnered so much success for Zidane during his first two-and-a-half year stint was based on explosive counter-attacking and clinical finishing – traits which are drastically missing from the current crop.
But the signing of Eden Hazard and the potential move for Mohamed Salah would rectify this in a big way. Added to that a genuine goal poacher in Luka Jovic and Real would have enough firepower to hurt any team in the world.
Both wingers play on the opposite flank and have the attacking nous to cut inside or play on the shoulder and get in behind with their pace.
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Hazard and Salah are two of the Premier League’s finest players
Paul Pogba is reportedly willing to take a pay cut to move to the Bernabeu suggesting it would not be beyond the realms of possibility to see him in Madrid next year.
If so, do not be surprised to see Luka Modric drop to the bench alongside potential casualties Isco and Marco Asensio.
While it can be argued the aforementioned Madrid players do not deserve to be moved on, Perez has a tendency to make transfers purely for the sake of vanity.
For instance, the sales of Claude Makelele and Angel Di Maria were both sanctioned to fund moves for players like James Rodriguez and David Beckham – superstars who did not necessarily add much more than their commercial value.
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Zidane is set to splash the cash in the summer
Zidane knows this better than most. When Makelele was sold for Beckham in 2003, his France teammate famously remarked ‘Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?’.
In order to avoid the mistakes of previous superstar-littered Real Madrid teams, the World Cup winner must ingratiate a specific playing style to give his team an identity and a common goal.
Failure to do so could leave Madrid susceptible to be overrun by a cacophony of egocentric superstars desperate for their chance to steal the spotlight.
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