It’s been a dreadful start to the season for Real Madrid, who slumped to their third La Liga defeat of the campaign against Levante on Saturday afternoon.In front of their home fans at the Bernabeu, Madrid found themselves two goals behind inside the opening 13 minutes following strikes from Jose Luis Morales and Roger Marti.To make matters worse, a damning statistic emerged early in the second half which confirmed Madrid were now officially on the worst goal drought in the club’s entire 116-year history.With the passing of the 55-minute mark, Los Blancos had racked up their 464th consecutive minute without hitting the back of the net.Marcelo finally ended that drought by pulling a goal back in the 72nd minute - but it wasn’t enough to prevent his team from losing the game.Julen Lopetegui, who replaced Zinedine Zidane in the summer, is now a man under severe pressure after Madrid made it five games without a win.There’s already talk that the former Spain coach could be replaced, with Antonio Conte the current favourite to take over at the Bernabeu.Madrid didn’t just lose Zidane in the summer, of course, they also lost the club’s all-time top goalscorer Cristiano Ronaldo.The Portuguese superstar, who netted a staggering 450 goals in 438 games during his nine-year spell with the Spanish giants, moved on to Juventus ahead of the 2018-19 campaign after helping Los Blancos win another European Cup.Ronaldo missed out to his former teammate Luka Modric for both the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year and FIFA’s The Best Men’s Player of the Year awards.He is also expected to lose out to Modric in the voting for the coveted Ballon d’Or award in December.Some people had suggested that Modric - rather than Ronaldo - was the glue holding Real Madrid together. They said the Croatia midfielder was the most important player in that team coached by Zidane.However, following Madrid’s poor start to the current campaign without Ronaldo, many football fans are now understandably laughing at people who made those audacious claims.

Modric has been sensational over recent seasons but to suggest he was a more important player than Ronaldo was always fanciful.

How Madrid fans must wish their former number seven was still playing for them now.