Zinedine Zidane Admits Getting Annoyed With Referee Criticism After Controversial Win

Zinedine Zidane has said that Real Madrid deserved their hard-fought victory at Real Sociedad on Sunday, insisting that some heavily criticised decisions from officials should not detract from his side's performance.

Los Blancos returned to the summit of La Liga with a narrow 2-1 victory, a penalty from Sergio Ramos and a goal from Karim Benzema ultimately enough to do the job. But there were a number of debatable decisions, notably when Adnan Januzaj had a goal dubiously overturned by VAR for offside, Vinicius was awarded a soft penalty and Karim Benzema appeared to control the ball with his upper arm for the winner.

It was something Sociedad boss Imanol Alguacul insisted was 'unfair' and 'marked' what was a good performance from his team, but in his post-match press conference, Zidane was not interested in letting talk about referees overshadow the football.

"I haven't seen the incidents, but I've been told there's a penalty on Vinicius and that Karim's goal is legal," Zidane said. "I don't go into controversy because there's a referee who is appointed for that. I only want to think about our deserved win.

"It annoys me that we just end up talking about the referees and it's as if we've done nothing on the pitch. We're not going to control what is said, we win on the pitch and that's what we did today. It's a deserved win."

It was a third straight win for Madrid since returning from lockdown and leaves them ahead of Barcelona due to their superior head-to-head record. With eight games remaining, a 34th league title is within their grasp.

"We have lots of games to go, we play every three days and the pressure is always the same," Zidane went on. The good thing is that we're all on it and committed. It's a very good win, but it doesn't change anything in our objective.

"There are still eight games to go and it won't be decided until the end. We still haven't achieved anything, although we've got nine points so far. It's going to be difficult until the end. We have to keep going.

"It's a good dynamic and the players are responding well. We always want more and we have to emphasise this attitude. We've seen a team that wants to win."

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