Real Madrid's Sergio Ramos: 'We must keep on fighting'

Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos has called on his teammates to "keep on fighting" after another La Liga loss all but surrendered any faint chance of retaining the Spanish crown.

Los Blancos slumped to a fourth league defeat of the season at Malaga last night to leave them a mighty 16 points adrift of league leaders Barcelona.

"Once again we have dropped important points, despite the team playing well in the first half, in which we had chances to score but we didn't have any luck," Ramos, 26, told the club's website.

"We shouldn't think about the league leaders or anybody else. We should only think about ourselves.

"We must be self-critical and La Liga is now very difficult, practically impossible, but we need to keep on fighting."

Madrid now enter the winter break and will return to action at home to Real Sociedad on January 6, 2013.