Real battle turmoil

Gareth Bale's future at Real Madrid has once again been cast into doubt after the Welshman was mercilessly booed by Los Blancos supporters during Tuesday night's Champions League defeat to Schalke.

Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti admitted he was at a loss to explain the European champions' current stupor as they scraped into the last eight, 5-4 on aggregate, after losing 4-3 to Schalke at the Bernabeu.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema aside, none of Real's superstars played well but it was Bale and, to a certain extent, Iker Casillas, who received the most vitriol.

Sadly for Bale it's nothing new, after extending his run of games without a goal to nine. The former Tottenham midfielder has failed to ingratiate himself with Real's fickle fans and a forward pass completion rate of just 58.3%, combined with a paltry 25% success rate at one-on-ones, only served to increase the noise level.

In a recent poll by Spanish newspaper AS, 46.1% of supporters thought the club's £86-million record signing should be cut from the team.

Almost half of around 3000 respondents in the poll said they believed that if Real Madrid broke up their so-called BBC (Bale, Benzema, Cristiano) front three, Bale should be the man to make way.

Incredibly, Ronaldo polled around a third of the vote and his anger was there for all to see. The Portugal international declared: "I won't talk again until the end of the season," cutting a frustrated figure with Los Blancos' form and fans.

Ronaldo twice equalised in the first half against Schalke to surpass Real legend Raul with 78 goals in all European competitions, but he was still seen shouting at his teammates and venting his fury as the night threatened to turn sour.

A 2-0, first-leg advantage was just enough to carry Real into the quarters for a fifth consecutive season on an evening when Ronaldo's achievement in becoming the all-time leading scorer in European competitions was overshadowed.

Ronaldo bagged a first-half brace to overtake Raul's tally after Christian Fuchs and Klass-Jan Huntelaar had given Schalke the lead.

Benzema then put Madrid in front on the night before Leroy Sane and a stunning strike from Huntelaar gave Schalke a deserved victory.

Ancelotti's men swept all before them in a 22-game winning run to end 2014 with a club record four-trophy haul for the calendar year after winning the Club World Cup.

However, they have lost five times in 15 games this year to surrender their La Liga lead to Barcelona and were on the verge of suffering one of the biggest shocks in Champions League history.

"We are playing very badly. It is quite incomprehensible after what we did until December," said Ancelotti.

"It is normal that the players lack confidence. I think we have dipped a bit physically too. We had problems in every aspect of the game: offensive, defensive, desire, fight and concentration."