Vinicius Junior rescues a Real Madrid that played with fire

Another game and another narrow, narrow win.

Real Madrid have a goal problem, that’s for sure, but Vinicius Junior’s strike earned them three points against Real Valladolid.

Los Blancos twice came close in the opening twenty minutes, with Fede Valverde seeing Roberto tip his effort just wide, while Luka Jovic should have scored but blazed over.

The Serbian forward, who was poor against Real Betis, was afforded another start by Zinedine Zidane, who shuffled his pack.

In came Marcelo and Odriozola among others, as he tried to give game time to those who didn’t get much in the narrow, controversial win over Real Betis.

The performance, however, wasn’t much different. Madrid found it hard to break down the visitors.

They should have scored early in the second half when Roberto clawed out Jovic’s header and then Casemiro crashed an effort against the crossbar from point-blank range.

At the other end Thibaut Courtois made a good save to push an effort from Shon Weissman around the post.

Eventually substitute Vinicius broke the deadlock after two Valladolid defenders contrived to pass him the ball in front of goal and he made no mistake.

That wasn’t the case shortly after when Karim Benzema gave him the chance to score again but he could not find the net. The Frenchman had a go himself and was denied by Roberto.

Madrid saw out the game without conceding thanks to the impressive Courtois, but they will need more than this as they set out to defend their title.