Julen Lopetegui must have known what he was in for when accepting an offer for the Real Madrid job in the summer.It simply has to be the most high-pressure role in football; anything less than winning is considered failure, while a season without silverware is nothing short of a disaster.Despite being only 12 matches into his tenure, Lopetegui is on course to face the repercussions of the latter scenario.Madrid are currently fifth in La Liga and struggling to break a run five games consisting of four losses and a draw.Remarkably, Los Blancos hadn’t scored since 15 September until Marcelo finally ended the 482-minute drought with a late consolation goal during their 2-1 defeat to Levante on Saturday.The Santiago Bernabeu crowd are far from used to seeing their club endure such a miserable run, having last waited five matches for a victory back in May 2009.To put their woes into perspective, Madrid were never prevented from hitting the back of the net in consecutive outings and relished a 73-game scoring streak between April 2016 and September 2017.That was under a certain Zinedine Zidane, who watched his men register 18 league goals by this stage last season, with only one courtesy of Cristiano Ronaldo.Lopetegui, on the other hand, has overseen their worst return (13) from the opening nine fixtures in the 14 years since the 2004-05 campaign when they managed only eight.Worryingly, too, Madrid saw fit to axe two managers - Jose Antonio Camacho and Mariano García Remon - before December amid such dire circumstances.

LOPETEGUI IN HOT WATER

It’s no secret Lopetegui is virtually guaranteed to suffer the same fate if he doesn’t turn things around soon - but it appears he may already be out of time.

Spanish publication AS reports: “For the moment, Julen Lopetegui is to stay on as Real Madrid head coach - at least until next Sunday's Clasico against Barcelona.

“However, the club's hierarchy have lost confidence in him. Real president Florentino Perez feels that, with Lopetegui failing to find a winning formula, it is growing more and more unlikely that he will be able to turn the situation around.”

It wouldn’t be unusual for Madrid to be planning so far in advance, though their preferred candidates to take over from Lopetegui are less than those one would expect.

AS also claim Perez has put forward ex-midfielder and Real Under-19s boss Guti Hernandez as a potential replacement, which has been well-received by other members of the board despite his inexperience.

Now an assistant coach at Besiktas, the 41-year-old is thought to be in the running alongside the man who beat him to the Castilla job last summer - Santiago Solari.

While Antonio Conte has also been mentioned, it would seem Madrid are willing to take a punt on another unestablished manager should they follow through with dismissing Lopetegui.

Whether it proves to be a sensible decision, we’ll have to wait and see.

Should Madrid stick with Lopetegui or sack him? Have your say in the comments section below.