It could be argued that with a different manager, Inter Milan would have done better in the champions league, Roma would have been leading or at least on equal amount of points with Inter, Chelsea would have been in the FA cup final and Arsenal would not be as successful as they have been.

But nowhere is it more glaring than the top 2 sides in Spain, that a top quality manager is needed for the full potential of a squad of brilliant players to be realised.

The way Real Madrid and Barcelona have gone about this season has been massively disappointing and most of the blame should be put squarely on the shoulders of the respective managers as they have made so many baffling tactical decisions, it has stopped being amusing.

Neither team has been entirely convincing this season and it is only because of the lack of belief from the other sides in the league that Real Madrid is still leading the league.

Teams like Villareal, Athletico Madrid, Sevilla and Espanyol lack the inner belief that they could win the league and they seem to be content with qualifying for 4th position at the very most.

The decisions taken by Bernd Schuster this season when it comes to his starting line-up and also his substitutions have been mind boggling to say the least and on Saturday night against Mallorca, he was at it again.

It is puzzling that he thinks that Gonzalo Higuain is a better option than Robinho in the starting line-up and his insistence on starting with Marcello at left back no matter how many mistakes he continues to make is another strange issue.

It was going well very luckily for him when Real Madrid were leading by 1-0 through a Wesley Sneijder goal but then Sergio Ramos was harshly sent off and this is where Schuster displayed his lack of acumen by taking off Higuain (rightly) but bringing on Mahamadou Diarra in what turned out to be a disastrous decision.

Diarra is not a right back and Mallorca quickly capitalised on that and got the equaliser from ex Real Madrid player, Borja Valero. He then realised his error and brought on Miguel Torres who is a right back and should have been brought on in the 1st place to replace Sneijder.

Then in the most bizarre substitution of all he took off his leading scorer Raul and brought on Julio Baptista and really Mallorca should have won the game in the last minute when their leading scorer, Daniel Guiza missed an absolute sitter.

Would Barcelona take advantage of this loss of 2 points by Real Madrid? Of course not! Not while Frank Rijkaard keeps matching Schuster for ineptitude with his stranger decision to keep playing Thierry Henry on the left, Samuel Etoo on the right and Bojan Krkic in the middle.

Bojan is far away the smallest of the 3, the least experienced and the one with the least amount of goals but Rijkaard still persists in playing his as the centre forward.

Obviously Barcelona struggled to a 0-0 draw against a Getafe side that expended a lot of energy in their excellent 1-1 draw on Thursday against German giants, Bayern Munich in the UEFA cup.

It is no wonder that everyone seems bemused in the Barcelona squad when players are continually played out of position.

The saddest part is neither Real Madrid nor Barcelona were made to pay for their results as 2nd placed team, Villiareal lost at Sevilla by 2-0 with goals by Luis Fabiano and a Freddy Kanoute penalty.