Have Real Madrid's BBC Reached Point Where They Just Fundamentally Don't Work?

No BBC: 8-0.

BBC: 0-1.

To draw definitive conclusions from small sample sizes is to tread dangerously, but the second week of December 2015 felt like a microcosm of Real Madrid's on-field existence. Just days after an XI led by two-thirds of the BBC handed out a frightening annihilation to Malmo, an even better XI on paper featuring the complete BBC went scoreless against Villarreal. 

"Prosperity was short-lived," said AS after the latter. "Sunk by Submarine," added Marca. Even manager Rafa Benitez couldn't hide it: "It's hard to explain," he said. 

In a way it is, yes. And yet, in another, is this actually straightforward to explain? Has the problem become unavoidable? Have Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo reached a point where they just fundamentally don't work together?

It's a legitimate question. 

On Sunday, as Real Madrid fell to Villarreal at El Madrigal, the damaging numbers on the scoreboard were only half of the story. Despite fielding a €250 million forward line, Madrid were staggeringly flat and ineffective, the sense of dysfunction that's often lingered around them increasing as an outfit oozing talent became a structural mess. 

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In attack, Benitez fielded all of his heavy hitters at the front of a loose 4-3-3 in which each man had licence to roam, and yet it took them almost an hour to register a shot on target—after that, they didn't add to that tally. It sounds absurd that an XI featuring the BBC plus James Rodriguez and Luka Modric mustered just one shot on target against a side with one clean sheet in eight games, but that's what happened.

An almost-identical lineup was similarly ineffective against Barcelona, too. And the back end of last season is littered with more examples. 

But how? Why?

When the Ronaldo-Benzema-Bale trio first came together in 2013, there were some early chemistry issues, but steadily they began to work together—and by "work," we mean function—because clarity existed for their respective roles. Through the middle, Benzema was a fulcrum, target and facilitator; out wide, Ronaldo and Bale operated as genuine wingers flanking him.

Systematically, it wasn't perfect given Bale's left-sidedness in a right-sided role, but the collective talent made it work anyway.

But now, that clarity has evaporated.

Though Benzema still plays through the middle, you can't label the positions of the other two. Ronaldo and Bale aren't wingers anymore. They're not centre-forwards, either. Instead, they're now both operating as some sort of hybrid, which sounds juicy and tantalising but leaves Madrid's system alarmingly unbalanced. 

Indeed, with all three looking to play close to goal, the end result is the most disjointed of formations. Between the midfield and the front three, there's no connection and regularly acres of space; out wide, there's no outlet or presence provided by the forwards, forcing a dangerously heavy workload upon the full-backs to provide width and thereby stretching the back four. 

It's no coincidence, then, that Madrid's best football in the last 18 months has come when, either because of injury or rotation, the BBC have been broken up. When those imbalances have been removed. When playing a 4-4-2 with a quartet of ball-playing midfielders—just as they did against Malmo and for most of the 22-game winning streak in 2014.

In short, the BBC once worked, but what they're becoming doesn't.  

The issues also go beyond things such as systems and formational balance, too. 

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"You have to 'graft' in today's game and the BBC are many things but grafters is not one of them," wrote Marca's Santiago Siguero. "They don't help out at the back and they lose out in midfield. It simply doesn't work."

Such a sentiment feels as though it's becoming uncomfortably true. Without the ball, Madrid's glamorous front three offer nowhere near enough, with a sense of sacrifice for others too often absent. That apparent absence of sacrifice has also been problematic among the three of them; regularly, Ronaldo and Bale in particular have felt as though they're competing for a spotlight designed to be shared.

From a team dynamics perspective, it feels awkward. Almost cold. Unlike the manner in which Barcelona's Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have managed, Madrid's BBC haven't found a way to coexist in harmony. 

These are the sensations. The facts are a little more brutal: With the BBC intact, Real Madrid are yet to win a Clasico, are yet to win a league game against Atletico Madrid and have won only once against Valencia. That's one win in almost two-and-a-half seasons against La Liga's strongest sides.  

If the second week of December was too small a sample size, that one is getting large enough to read into.