Zidane: "I have a lot of hopes on the league, it’s not over yet"

Four games in and three high-scoring wins, are you surprised?“It's been a surprising start for me. It's not easy to score five, six goals in game - but with hard work, you can do it. It’s pleasing; we put in a good game, started well which is the most important thing. It’s not easy to do what we are doing”.

James is back: “I'm very happy with how James is performing. He is working very hard and I’m particularly happy with what he is doing off the ball. When he’s not in possession, he is doing a great job, and when he’s got the ball, we all know what he can do. Overall I was very happy with his performance today”.

Cristiano: “We're so used to seeing Cristiano scoring, if he doesn't get a hat trick, people think there's something wrong…. We’ve got accustomed to him scoring always – in every game. That won’t change because he is a very effective player, he has tremendous ambition and he always wants to score for the team. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t score. Defensively, he did a magnificent job tonight”.

Tranfer deadline day. Could Cheryshev leave? “We'll see tomorrow but yes, Cheryshev could leave. He's a great player but he needs to be playing regularly. The most important thing for him is that he gets minutes. He is a hard-working player and he needs to be building up playing time. I wish him the best. If he has the chance to leave, I’d be delighted for him. We’ll see what happens tomorrow”.

Benzema: “It’s difficult for him to improve more than he has. He works very hard. He enjoys working hard in training. You can always improve your game. What I want, is not that he opens the scoring for us – just that he does his job well. Defensively he is helping out because he never stops running”.

Madrid’s options of winning the league: “We just try to do the maximum in every game to leave ourselves options when we reach the final weeks of the season. We're four points behind and it could be seven; it’s difficult but not impossible. I have high hopes for the league because it’s not over yet”.

Substitutions: "The three who came on did really well. It’s the players who are important – even those who hardly ever play. Nacho, Arbeloa and Cheryshev aren’t playing but they make the rest of the team better. If we win something it will be down to the group – all of them, not for two or three players”.

Maintaining this level against the top sides: “The idea is to try to maintain our physical level in the next few games as we have the Champions League coming up and we’ll be playing every three days; We have to be aware that every game is going to be difficult and we have to be fully focused in all of them. We’ll be coming up against some very difficult opponents – and not just Barça or Atlético. Granada next week is going to be a very complicated game. If we want something from this league, we have to win every game”.