Real Madrid fans turned up at Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday anticipating another miracle. What they got was a mess, the inevitable result of Florentino Perez's negligence.
Madrid spent the majority of the evening bombarding the Arsenal area with crosses and long balls but, as a bitterly frustrated Thibaut Courtois pointed out, it was an exercise in futility, given Joselu wasn't there to get on the end of them.
But then, it wasn't as if Madrid had the guile in midfield to pick holes in the Gunners' backline. Indeed, Joselu wasn't the only member of last year's double-winners who was sorely missed across both legs of the humiliating 5-1 aggregate loss to Arsenal. Toni Kroos was also conspicuous by his absence - because Perez failed to replace him, too, and that's proven an even bigger oversight on the part of the president.
With the great Luka Modric now well past his best, Madrid no longer have a single player capable of dictating the play or opening up defences in the same way that the Croat and Kroos did for a decade. Truth be told, the whole make-up of the midfield looks wrong, with Aurelien Tchouameni clearly not good enough to serve as the kind of No.6 that a team like Madrid requires, and Eduardo Camavinga still a work in progress. Even Jude Bellingham's free role looks like a luxury Real can ill-afford as those stationed in front of him do so little from a defensive perspective.
It's clear, then, that Madrid need to belatedly find another Kroos - or the next best thing - if they are to reclaim their place at the summit of European football. Below, GOAL runs through six possible solutions to Real's defensive midfield problem...
