Xabi Alonso has left his job as coach of Real Madrid, only seven months after arriving for his first day at the club’s Valdebebas training ground. A brief statement announced his departure “by mutual consent” on Monday evening after Madrid’s 3-2 defeat in the final of the Spanish Super Cup against Barcelona the previous night, The Guardian reported. 

He will be replaced, at least in the short term, by his former Real Madrid and Liverpool teammate and friend Álvaro Arbeloa, who was coach of Castilla, Madrid’s B team.

Alonso had been on the edge over the last month, with the defeat at Liverpool in the Champions League in early November beginning a run of two victories in eight games which also turned a five-point lead over Barcelona at the top of the La Liga table into a four-point deficit, according to The Guardian.