AS.com

José Mourinho spoke to the press before Real Madrid's afternoon training session and their trip to Valencia, to face Levante in the Liga. He left a number of headlines; the first of those, that Cristiano will play as a 'nine' at the Ciutat de Valencia stadium. On Madrid's form he said he was hoping to improve but that he now sees the team "with ambition."

Without Benzema and Higuaín, doubts about the striker: "Cristiano will play as a nine against Levante."

Question-marks over the left-back: "I don't know who will play. I don't know if I'll have him (Coentrao) or Arbeloa. It depends a lot on how training goes and how the players are feeling. They will be there, if not to play then on the bench. Di María, Cristiano and Callejón will play in attack. Do I expect more from Coentrao? I don't expect anyting."

Levante's style: "You've got to play against everybody. Sometimes you meet teams with different characteristics. On one hand, you have to dictate with your football and if you don't achieve that, you have to adapt to the characteristics of the opponent. Winning isn't only difficult for us. You remember how they lost their last game at home; I remember at least. It's a tough place to go. Their style gets them results, so nobody can criticise it. We never talk about the players, although it's true that we're missing people. But we don't complain."

Kaká: "He helps the team when he's on the pitch. If he was a left-back, he would have played many matches by now. He's a number ten. When we use him more and Özil less you ask me about Özil. Now you're asking about Kaká. Tomorrow Özil will play as ten. Now you have the attackers."

Modric: "I thought you were going to ask me about Essien, not Modric."

Higuaín's substitution at half-time: why then and not when he got injured? "The question doesn't deserve an answer."

Benzema and his words: "I'm in the bench for 90 minutes."

Internationals: "Who do you want me to thank for the stuff about the internationals? I don't have anything to be thankful for."

Real Madrid this campaign: "We'll speak at the end. The season ends in May. In May we'll take stock and in May we'll be in the best position to evaluate our season. I hope to be playing better than we are but the team is committed, ambitious; they want to win and they want to improve."