It sounds ridiculous, but I think the title race is over. Barca have it wrapped up, you'll still finish comfortably second though. Not good enough though. Everyone at Madrid knows that dropped points for Barca are a rare occurrence, and the aim was to play cat and mouse with them, keeping up and capitalising when thy either dropped points to others, or in the Clasicos.
Failing to keep within 3 points of them before September is even over is a pretty big failure imo.
Can;t believe Benzema still starts for you btw. Quick list of strikers who are better than him across Europe
Suarez*
Van Persie
Rooney
Soldado
Aguero*
Dzeko
Negredo
Tevez*
Higuain (imo)
Villa
Cavani*
Falcao
Ibrahimovic
Costa (?)
Benteke (?)
Lukaku (?)
Mandzukic
Lewandowski*
Gomez
Cardozo
The stars are players you definitely should have tried signing in the summer, even if you'd have had to give up on bale to make it happen. I'm not sure if Lewandowski was dead set on joining Bayern, but I think Dortmund might have sold to you just to stop him joining Bayern next summer.