The Athletic.

Victory on Wednesday night met Real Madrid reached the halfway stage of the season as league

leaders in Spain on goal difference.

It's a good hit, and it is a late goal from the Rail Madrid.

It's Antonio Rodiger.

But in terms of stability, resources and recruitment, they look miles ahead of everyone else

in La Liga at the moment and most clubs in Europe. So with the future of manager Carlo

Ancelotti secured, overseeing a clutch of talented youngsters in their redeveloped iconic stadium,

what, if anything, do they need to improve, apart from

signing Killian Mbapé, that is. I'm Adam Leventhal. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast.

Well, I'm joined today by the Athletics' Spanish football experts, Dermott Corrigan and Thomas Hill-Lopez Menshero,

continued in-depth coverage of La Liga on the Athletic for you, as always.

If you're just a casual observer, let's just catch up on where we are now.

Real Madrid are top on goal difference from Girona? Are Rail Madrid genuinely worried about them staying the distance, Dermott? I don't think so. What Girona is doing is absolutely incredible,

really. Nobody would have predicted like they've been building well. They have some backing from the Man City group, but maybe they might have been predicted to challenge for a Europa League spot this season at best. So to see them flying at the top of the table, you know, I've scored four goals against Barser, four goals against Adelaico is incredible. It does kind of hide a little bit the fact that Madrid have built up such a big lead over Atlatico and over Barso. Barsa have a game in hand. They're going to play tonight against Las Palma. So maybe they'll cut it to seven. But even still, Madrid have motored away from their two main rivals in the table. And that's even though they've had a lot of injuries to deal with. It's been really good job by Ancelotty. Bellingham has been

incredible and the feeling among the squad as well is that they have to win this one and also

that maybe affects whether they move in the transfer window because they don't really need

to strengthen the squad if they have such a big lead in the table. As Demme said there, I mean,

the lead they've taken over Basser and Adlesco is pretty remarkable. I totally agree with

Dermon, what Jurella doing is amazing. It maybe does have some parallels with Lester and how the big boys

apart from Real Madrid are kind of falling away a bit. I mean, Barser being 10 points behind Madrid

would be

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