Real Madrid Take Down Sevilla: The Three Biggest Positives to Take

On Sunday night, Real Madrid picked up a hugely important win at home to Sevilla to ensure they did not lose any further ground to Barcelona at the top of La Liga. 

The good thing about Barcelona beating Real Betis on Saturday evening is that it means Real Madrid have overtaken Manuel Pellegrini's side in the table and now sit in third place. Still not good enough, but better - and means that a win next week would narrow the gap to just three points. 

So, let's keep the positive energy going - and single out the three biggest positives from a great night at home. 

First of all, let's talk about Yan Diomande. In the absence of Vinicius Jr, who was serving the first of his four game suspension in La Liga, the Ivory Coast international was deployed off the left hand side by Jose Mourinho. 

Not only was he trusted to start for a second consecutive week in La Liga, and for a third straight game since the international break, but he also got to play the full 90, and boy did he repay that faith. 

Throughout the evening, Diomande was brilliant and a thorn in the Sevilla side, who struggled to cope with his ball carrying and dribbling. Although the goal was more on the finish from Arda Guler, he assisted the young Turk half an hour in to set the tone for the evening. 

Then, 82 minutes into the game, he got his deserved goal, and what a strike it was too - firing an unstoppable shot from the edge of the box across his body and into the top corner at the near post (of sorts). Just sublime in every sense of the word. 

If the former RB Leipzig man keeps this up, then Mourinho genuinely has a selection headache and dilemma when Vinicius returns from his suspension. He really does. Let's see.  

The return of Eder Militao. Throughout his career in the Spanish capital, Militao has been very good. For the whole seven years. But there is one other thing that has been a constant during that time - injuries.  

Indeed so. As good as the Brazilian has been, he has missed so many games through injury, and has only played more than 21 games in a season twice, consecutively during the 21/22 and 22/23 seasons, where he played 50 and 51 games respectively. Since then; 13, 18 and 21. 

Back in April, the defender decided to undergo hamstring injury, which ended his season and more importantly, his dreams of playing for Brazil at the FIFA World Cup. Well, six long months later, he made his long awaited return in the closing minutes of this game. 

We said that the one scenario you could see him getting game time against Sevilla was if the game was safe late on, and that's exactly what happened, as he replaced Federico Valverde in the 85th minute. 

Just imagine the possibility of him being able to play a part in El Clasico next weekend. It could end up making all of the difference. 

Guler showed he can play in a deeper role. There has been a lot of debate recently about managing to fit both Guler and Jude Bellingham into the same team, as well as playing with two different wide options. 

Some have said Bellingham could be the one to play deeper, but it is clear that is a waste of what he is at best at - combination play outside of the box, crashing the box, being that final third difference, pressing high and disrupting, etc etc. 

So, Mourinho decided to opt for the Turkish international in that deeper role instead, and it very much worked. He was able to get forward to score his brilliantly taken goal, but also controlled the game from a deeper position too. He completed 11/14 long balls, and had 74 touches of the ball, whilst playing 78 minutes. 

Not only that, but he was also impressive off the ball too - Guler was not dribbled past once all game, won 2/2 tackles, 3/4 ground duels and won his sole aerial duel. If he can continue to show that defensive intensity, then why can't he be a viable option in the double pivot moving forwards?