Santiago Solari to be Appointed Full-Time Manager at Real Madrid

Will Solari remain at the Bernabeu behind the current season?

Santiago Solari was initially appointed as caretaker manager, after Real Madrid decided to sack Julen Lopetugei at the end of last month. But due to Spanish league regulations, a caretaker can only be in charge for 15 days, which has propelled the club’s hierarchy to hand him the reigns permanently until the end of the season.

When asked after Real Madrid cruised to a 4-2 victory over Celta Vigo, Solari responded to questions about his potential full-time employment at the club by saying the Bernabeu side has to focus on themselves and do what’s in their best interest.

“The club has to focus on what is best for Real Madrid and the rest is just details,” said the 42-year-old.

“We pressed high up the pitch today and got the ball off them on quite a few occasions. As a coach, you want everything to go perfectly, but at the end of the day it is the character that the players who which proves crucial.”

Real Madrid are currently in 6th position with 20 points, with a record of 6 wins, 2 draws and an astonishing 4 losses, and it’s only November. They normally have this amount of defeats throughout the entire season, which only goes to show how poor their current form is, so it’s safe to say they’re not the favourites with online sportsbooks in Spain to achieve much this season. As a comparison, their fiercest rivals Barcelona are top of the league (despite suffering a loss over the weekend) with 24 points to their name.

Real Madrid face tough challenges ahead

Since the start of the current campaign, Real Madrid have endured a difficult time as they had to adapt to a new system without some of the former proven components that saw them win the last three editions of the Champions League.

After sealing a third straight European title, Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane announced that he was stepping down from the club, news that caught everyone by surprise. And then the royal club opted against offering their most illustrious goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo a new, improved contract and instead decided to sell him to Juventus for over €100m.

This was perhaps their biggest mistake as Real Madrid have lacked goals this season – something that Ronaldo would have easily done based on his numbers with the club, where he averaged over 50 goals per season for six straight seasons over the nine-year period he spent with the club.

On top of that, online sportsbook news report Los Blancos failed to reinvest the money from his transfer in another marquee forward and have instead relied on youngsters who are partnered by Bale and Benzema – both of whom are not on the same level as their former Portuguese teammate.

Solari has inherited a tough task that will require a large cash injection and time to fix before real Madrid can consider competing for silverware again, but the problem is they’re not too keen when it comes to the latter.