From the "Vipers" to the "Vikings": "Amrabat's hand" rescues Real Madrid from the Betis pit

Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho named a side much like the one that faced Inter Milan in the Champions League, with two key changes.

Yan Diomande started on the right wing ahead of Arda Guler, while Bernardo Silva came into midfield in place of Alexander-Arnold.

Bernardo's return handed Real Madrid real fluidity. He became the magic solution for his teammates, carrying the ball out from the first and second thirds all the way up to goal.

The Portuguese star did not grab a goal or a decisive assist, that much is true. But every goal Real Madrid scored before he came off bore his fingerprint from the very start.

Even so, pairing Silva with Federico Valverde in midfield behind Jude Bellingham was hardly the ideal fix. The side needs someone better equipped to patrol the deeper areas of the pitch, the number 6 role, in the mould of Aurelien Tchouameni.

Rayo Vallecano never gave themselves the chance to punish that defensive gap. Their players seemed to compete over who could gift the most errors to Real Madrid's forwards, and the Royal club duly struck twice inside the first 17 minutes.

Both goals stemmed from naive individual mistakes. Kylian Mbappe won and converted the penalty for the first, while a stray pass teed up Alvaro Carreras for the second.

Go two goals up on Real Madrid inside 17 minutes and clawing anything back becomes a tall order for any team. Rayo Vallecano knew it. They dropped deep to stop the bleeding rather than chase the game, and a way back never came.

Once the second half began, Mourinho sensed the match was slipping away and threw on French midfielder Eduardo Camavinga for Valverde. Real Madrid promptly lost the midfield altogether.

Rayo Vallecano and their coach Iñigo Pérez had the courage to push out from their own ground. Real Madrid helped them, retreating too deep and coughing up possession again and again, unable to escape the second third of the pitch.

Exploiting the gaping hole in the heart of the Real Madrid defence, the visitors began peppering the Whites' goal. Only the brilliance of Belgian goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois kept them to a single scare.

Mourinho tried to fix it. He plugged the centre by dropping Tchouaméni into defence for Bernardo Silva, knowing full well the switch cost him the last player capable of controlling the ball and keeping it at his team-mates' feet.

The next change came immediately for that reason: on came Arda Guler in place of Diomande, and the course of play shifted completely.

Real had been penned back towards Courtois' goal. The Turk restored the balance, returning the ball to Real Madrid's feet and controlling the tempo in the best possible manner.

Guler sprinkled his magic. He came close to winning a penalty before setting up the fourth goal for French star Kylian Mbappe.

Make no mistake, Guler was the man who steered Real Madrid to safety, after they had come close to falling into the same trap that caught them against Real Betis.

Speaking of Real Madrid's hand, the Arabs long ago knew the saying "by my own hand, not by the hand of Amr", to illustrate a person doing something themselves without waiting for others. That is something the Royal side did not experience in their last two matches.

Real clearly benefited from Rayo Vallecano's errors tonight, despite committing plenty of obvious mistakes of their own. The same thing happened in their last match against the vipers of Inter Milan in the UEFA Champions League.

Mourinho got the Inter match wrong from the start, relying on Valverde alongside Arnold in midfield. That handed the Italian side a big advantage, but they threw it away themselves through naive errors from their players.

Aurel Bisseck gifted them the first goal. The Inter Milan defender lost the ball in a dangerous area, and Brahim Diaz pounced to create the opener for Kylian Mbappe.

Goalkeeper Josep Martinez then made an even more naive mistake, trying to dribble past Federico Valverde only to lose the ball to the Real Madrid man, who slotted it straight into the net for the second.

Inter did score in the second half and came close to equalising. But they failed to recover from the hole they had dug for themselves, exactly as happened with Rayo Vallecano.