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I agree. And I would say it's not purely on Ancelotti but the recruitment policy. Mbappe and Vini simply doesn't seem to work together. Mbappe is not a lone CF, period. He's left-flanked forward/winger, just like Vinicius. Bellingham is a ghost now that he's not scoring goals (0 goals this season, fucking 100m player). I think it's the dynamics up front, of the lack of them hurts Bellingham too.
Catastrophic recruitment policy and not even really just the Mbappé/Vini dynamics. They went into this season with two healthy center backs. That's it. Their #3 center back is their normal #6 (who's having a HORRIBLE season and is now injured). Their #4 center back is chronically injured and rarely plays because injuries have robbed him of all his skill. Alaba's had a super long rehab process from a torn ACL, he's still not expected back anytime soon, and he'd been in decline the last two seasons before tearing his ACL.
Pérez really thought that Madrid could survive this season with their center back situation being that. They had one summer signing planned, failed to make it (low balled the fuck out of Lille for Leny Yoro) and that was it. They actively chose against trying to make any other signings for that position.
They lost their midfield maestro in Kroos to retirement. Did nothing to replace his profile or something close to it. Lost their 18-goal scoring striker, replaced his goals with Mbappé but did nothing to replace his profile (Thierry Henry did a breakdown yesterday of Mbappé not making runs that a #9 should, maybe because he's not a #9, those runs aren't instinctive to him, and they don't make the best use of his skills often times since a lot of those runs are designed with the aerial game in mind and he's not an aerial player). I don't feel like you bet against Mbappé's talent and eventually making good of it, but it reminds me of Barcelona signing Griezmann a few years ago when they still had Messi; they like to operate in the same areas, they did more to get in each other's way than complement each other.
It was just a recipe for disaster.
I said plenty of good things about Real Madrid last year. The outcome of their season didn't surprise me, there was a lot to like about what they were doing, how the pieces fit, mixed together with some of their usual Champions League black magic. But I said quite a few times during the summer that they had about the worst transfer window you could have when your window includes signing Kylian Mbappé. That defensive situation just gave them no chance to reach expectations.
