Will Real rob itself of Liga title?

Two free kicks, five sendings off, a stream of vitriol and half a coachless team to face Real Sociedad at the weekend has changed the face of the race for the Liga title, which seemed all but decided fewer than 10 days ago.

“We’re not going to win the league,” has been the mantra issuing from Camp Nou, delivered by a melancholic Pep Guardiola. Mind games? The Catalan coach is certainly wily enough and a chance to put one over on José Mourinho in the psychological stakes is perhaps too tempting to resist. In any case, Real seems hell bent on its own destruction. Mourinho’s side, having dropped two points to a Santi Cazorla free-kick against Málaga on Sunday, did the same against Villarreal, Marcos Senna’s strike beating Iker Casillas from a similar angle to the Spain midfielder’s.

But it was not so much Wednesday night’s result — despite Villarreal’s dreadful season, it is still a side with international pedigree in many positions — but the manner in which Real swallowed it that shows the strain on coach and players is beginning to boil over. Sergio Ramos and Mesut Özil were both dismissed from the field, while Mourinho and fitness coach Rui Faria were both ushered from the dugout by match referee Parados Romero. Cue the conspiracy theory: the unfortunate Romero was in charge when Mourinho was expelled in a King’s Cup match against Murcia last year. Clearly in the upper echelons of the umpiring fraternity there is a freemason’s coven bent on denying Real success, as Mourinho intimated last season.

The Portuguese might care to look closer to home, though, for Real’s recurring foot-shooting folly. Pepe was also shown red after the match had finished for insulting Romero. Cristiano Ronaldo may yet be called to heel for stalking from the pitch wailing about “robbery.” How Casillas must long for the days when the nightclub-frequenting Guti was the extent of Real’s controversy corner.

If Real ends the season empty-handed, it will only have itself to blame. The rules are quite clear — Özil might have remembered Wayne Rooney seeing red for sarcastically applauding a referee a few years ago — and Mourinho’s failure to control his charges a fatal flaw in his tenure at Real.

A siege mentality is all well and good but not when your castle is built on the sand between your players’ ears. The decision of the technical staff to refuse the post-match press conference does not emit a sense of maturity to be followed. The long-suffering Aitor Karanka will assume control of the team against Sociedad, and the post- and pre-match media duties. It is instructive that Mourinho’s assistant is a more regular attendee at these encounters than the man paid some 11 million euros a year for more than touchline histrionics.

Contrast with Guardiola, who is measured and calm in front of the press but tough when he needs to be behind the scenes. He wasted no time in sanctioning Gerard Piqué earlier in the season for his amorous extracurriculars, banished to the reserve team stuck out against Bate Borisov in a dead Champions League rubber, then to the crowd when that failed to have the desired effect.

Mourinho won’t have to send his motley crew to the stands; Real will now be without Ramos and Özil for one match, and Pepe for possibly many more, dependent on the content of Romero’s match report. Lassana Diarra will also miss the game after picking up a fifth caution,

With a clásico at Camp Nou in April and matches against Valencia and a vastly improved Atlético before that, the pressure is mounting on Mourinho, whose side are now just six points clear of Barça, with head-to-head results decisive in the case of a tie. A King’s Cup win last season continued Mourinho’s remarkable record of bagging a trophy in his first full season in charge of all the sides he has coached since Porto, but the domestic trinket will not slake the glister-lust of president Florentino Pérez forever. Incessant reports linking Mourinho with a return to England have also provided more off-field attention than Real requires.

Guardiola might have been morose of late, but he must have smiled broadly on Wednesday.