Schuster: We Need To Protect Our Leads

Focusing less on the fact that his team went behind to Numancia twice, Real Madrid boss Bernd Schuster urged his men not to grow complacent when faced with the prospect of victory.

Madrid edged a 4-3 win over Numancia after twice coming from behind, but it was what happened after the hosts' fourth went in that worried Schuster most of all.

"I don't think we suffered for this win and I don't think there's a physical downturn," he began at the press conference.

"I think that Numancia had a great deal of spirit and we are to blame, too, for their reaction. We already knew that they were going to be a very difficult rival.""But a positive was our capacity for reaction. That was 100% effective. We deserved to win by more, but we took our foot off the pedal too soon."

Indeed, while he had initially said that he didn't feel that Madrid had had to fight too hard for the win, nonetheless the German praised the visitors from Soria.

"Numancia had attracted my attention. They work very hard and they earned their result against Barcelona," he said.

"Today we did have some difficulties but I'm not worried. We know that matches after international breaks are more difficult."

Schuster was asked about the situation surrounding Sergio Ramos, who was rested for tonight's tie.

He said earlier that this was down to an international sustained on international duty while playing through the pain barrier - something that Vicente del Bosque and company denied.

Bernd wouldn't be drawn on the issue again, except to say that if del Bosque had said something about Ramos then he would take it as "true."

Looking ahead to the midweek Champions League clash with BATE Borisov, he concluded, "No doubt about it: I'm concerned about the goal that we concede from dead balls.

"If that match can be a banana skin then we need to go carefully and handle the game better when we're ahead: our problem has been not knowing how to manage the tempo of the game."