Why Benítez may not be a bad appointment?

On the face of it, sacking Ancelotti seems a terrible decision.

However, it's not surprising. It's what Real Madrid do: they are the biggest club in the world and have high standards and Ancelotti's failure to win the league in two seasons coupled with failing to retain the Champions League always meant that there would at least be a question over his future.

It is not a bad decision because I was extremely confident that Ancelotti would win either La Liga or the Champions League next season, but the reason I thought it was initially a bad decision is because Real Madrid have boxed themselves into a corner whereby there is very little top class managers out there for them who could succeed. Other than Ancelotti the other top managers around are José Mourinho, who of course would not go back to nor would be welcome back at the Bernabeu, and the other is of course Guardiola who could never manage them.

However, onto the appointment of Benítez and whilst I am not confident in him either to regain La Liga or win the Champions League, I still regard it as a possibility whereby the chance of it happening is no greater or no worse than other people they could have appointed.

In my opinion, it has been criminal that Real Madrid have not won La Liga in the last few years and whilst you have to commend Atlético Madrid and Barcelona for that reason, you've also got to say that Ancelotti has had substantial backing and hasn't delivered it in the big domestic matches enough throughout the La Liga seasons.

Benítez as a manager seems to put a lot of focus into the bigger games and does reasonably in them, at times I feel his success in them can be overstated but he does reasonably well. Nevertheless, in his time at Liverpool and Napoli I feel it is against the smaller sides where his teams have always failed to gather momentum: there is a reasonable gap between Liverpool and the lower teams in the Premier League in terms of quality and the same can be said of Napoli and the lower teams in Serie A.

However, I think the vast difference between Real Madrid and the lower teams in La Liga is to such an extent that even Benítez's meddling may not even do enough to cost them.

The big question is will being reasonable in the bigger games be enough for him to succeed?

If Real Madrid are going to win a significant title under him then he will need to do better than that.

I am not saying that he will be a success but I am saying it is somewhat harsh to write him off this early.