Positives for Real Madrid to take away from Villarreal draw

After being thrashed against Valencia in their previous fixture, Real Madrid were keen to start well against Villarreal on Saturday and Mariano Diaz put them ahead after just two minutes. 

The Spanish-Dominican put Real ahead, but a silly penalty given away by Courtois allowed Gerard Moreno level the scores. It was a point that felt like a defeat for Real Madrid. 

Despite seeing everything negatively, there are positive things to take away from the game, as 'Marca' tells us. The first thing is that Mariano has not lost his goalscoring instinct despite hardly playing for Zidane. 

He had played just 14 minutes at the Mestalla before the Villarreal encounter. He played 85 at La Ceramica, but he only needed two minutes to score for the first time since 'El Clasico' back in March. 

Another of the players was Carvajal. The full back, who returned after recovering from knee ligament injury, assisted Mariano and was fantastic. Zidane missed the player and his return is a huge sigh of relief for the Frenchman. 

We should also mention Varane who was a doubt until the last minute and Nacho who did a good job as stand in for Sergio Ramos. 

In midfield, Kroos, Odegaard and Modric won the ball back on 12 occasions. 

Every cloud has a silver lining and even though a draw is unsatisfactory for Real Madrid, positives can be taken away from the game. Next Wednesday, they play away to Inter and they cannot slip up.