Zinedine Zidane Says He's Not 'Worried' After Real Madrid Loss to Mallorca

Real Madrid manager Zinedine Zidane has said he's not "worried" after his team slumped to their first La Liga loss of the season on Saturday against Real Mallorca.

Los Blancos were well below their best against the newly promoted side, with Lago Junior's seventh-minute goal enough for the home side to secure a memorable victory at Estadi de Son Moix. Madrid toiled in response and saw a miserable day capped off when Alvaro Odriozola was sent off in the second half.

After the contest, Zidane said he wasn't too concerned by the performance, although he called on his players to show more consistency in their play, per Joe Wright of Goal:

"The problem is that we have to show every three days that we're good. That's the difficulty—we don't do it. I won't say that I'm worried because I don't like the word, but if we want to win something this season, we need consistency.

"[I feel] bad because we didn't play the game we wanted and in the end, starting as we started, it has been difficult. In the second half, we were a little anxious because there had been no scoring chances."

Here are the highlights from a forgetful evening in Mallorca for the La Liga giants:

Earlier in the day, Barcelona won 3-0 at Eibar, meaning the champions will finish the weekend ahead of their great rivals at the top of the La Liga table.

Per Kiyan Sobhani of Managing Madrid, Los Blancos have been unable to capitalise on what has been a sluggish start for the Catalan giants:

Although Zidane was without a number of key players because of injury—Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale and Lucas Vazquez were all missing—he still would have been hoping for a better performance from his players.

After conceding the early goal, there was little urgency in Madrid's play, with Karim Benzema's effort that clipped off the crossbar in the first period the only time they looked like threatening. 

Spanish football writer Andy West thinks Zidane will be pleased Los Blancos don't have to play Barcelona on Saturday following this display:

The injury issues represented an opportunity for some fringe players to make their cases for regular starting spots. Odriozola was disappointing before being given his marching orders in the 74th minute, while Luka Jovic had another testing afternoon after his big-money move from Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer:

Although the defeat was Madrid's first of the La Liga season, overall they have not performed well on a regular basis, and it's easy to see why Zidane is frustrated.

There's a sense of an opportunity missed for Los Blancos given Barcelona's own relative issues early in the campaign. While Zidane may not be concerned, as is always the case at the Santiago Bernabeu, should these poor performances continue, the pressure will start to build on the coach.