Iker Casillas was furious. The veins on his head pulsating, a look of disgust creeping across his face, he screamed at his players. Slowly, they took heed. Some of them, anyway. Others simply ignored him; others barely looked, heading in the opposite direction. And the more they ignored him, the more annoyed he got. Pointing, shouting, remonstrating. Here! Now! ¡Joder! Until he became resigned to it; we'll just have to do it without you. Pepe, Marcelo, Sergio Ramos, Ricardo Carvalho and Emmanuel Adebayor all took up their positions near their captain, looked up … and began to applaud. The full-time whistle had gone and some had disappeared down the tunnel already. In the middle of the pitch, six players stayed and clapped. Up in the stands, Real Madrid's supporters clapped them back, cheering.

It was as if everyone was trying to convince themselves that they were happy, to externalise their optimism. But the image, celebration laced with irritation, said much. About uncertainty, about doubts, about priorities, about the awkwardness of the situation and, in part, about relations within Real Madrid's dressing room.

After the 1-1 draw with Barcelona on Saturday night, José Mourinho talked about the referee. He talked about red cards and 10 men. He talked about pride and satisfaction. He talked about his side undertaking a mission: impossible. He uttered an awful lot of words. But there was one word he did not utter, not once: "league". And nor did anyone else. No one asked. It was the elephant in the room – a great big white elephant, stamping and blowing its trunk and dumping on the floor.

One headline in AS the following morning said it all: "The cup is ours", which it still might not be, while the league is Barcelona's. The front covers of both of the capital's sports newspapers made no reference to the title at all. When Alvaro Arbeloa was asked about it, he shrugged almost surprised, resigned. "It's practically over," he said. Barcelona had just won the league title, but no one celebrated it. The Catalan dailies led on the league but the players were looking beyond it already, a little downbeat at having relinquished a lead. Andrés Iniesta called it "a pity". The TV footage of Barça fans on the Ramblas was pretty pathetic – a handful of randoms who had just stumbled out of Pans&Co, sandwiches in hand, dancing for the greatest human-magnet on earth: a TV camera. Not for the title.

Instead, the celebrations were in Madrid. It was there that the cheering was loudest. It was always likely to be this way – these four games were never going to live in isolation but rather feed off each other; the first game's real value came in how it set up the second, the third and the fourth. But the complete obliteration of the title was striking. The assumption was that, given their lead, Barcelona would win the league. Everyone knew that, but they expected resistance. Both sides looked relatively content to postpone hostilities, happy with the draw – even though Madrid were obliged to play for a win if they wanted to win the league. It is now impossible for them to accumulate as many points as Madrid did under Manuel Pellegrini last season.

Accumulating games is another matter. Madrid will play more than 10 more this season than last: progress in the Copa del Rey and in Europe, Madrid's great obsession, is a trump card. That has become the measure of success.

It is all about expectation, too. It is perhaps natural enough that Madrid should feel satisfied at gaining a draw having trailed by a goal and a man against Barcelona. All the more so when they lost 5-0 in November. This game was presented as being an opportunity to draw first blood. For Madrid, it became a chance to stem the bleeding. Madrid were not hammered by Barcelona; that run of five successive Barça wins has come to an end. "Losing a leg is not normally a positive outcome but when you see that shark fin in the water and you expect to be eaten alive, just losing a leg is a great result," writes David Gistau in El Mundo. "Anyone meeting Joe Pesci in the Nevada desert would be satisfied just to come out alive." The slate, they say, has been wiped clean; confidence has been restored.

But should it have been? What are the real consequences of the clásico? Are there any? Should that be the height of the expectations? And is Mourinho really a tactical genius? His approach was simple, not complex. The skill is not in its conception but its execution, its application. The skill is in the intensity and rigorousness with which it is applied, his ability to get players to follow his instructions, in building a team. But the image at the end hinted at an internal reality: division is not the word, but there is not an iron unity either, nor unshakable faith in the approach.

Besides, if the clásico is to be judged purely against results, still Barcelona were leading 1-0. Madrid came back into the game after Mourinho had taken off Xabi Alonso and Angel Di María – thinking less about turning the game round and more about protecting them for the cup final – and put on Mesut Ozil whom he had decided not to start. For all Mourinho's comments about the referee – designed to condition the future rather than complain about the past – Barcelona felt equally hard done by. And if this game was all about preparing for the cup final, was the exertion demanded on his players by chasing Barcelona much of the game – Madrid completed 179 passes to Barcelona's 740 – really beneficial?

There was something incongruous about Madrid celebrating a draw that cost them the league, about the way they relinquished the title. However pragmatic it may have been, there is a backlash against the style too, about an approach where the grass is left long and dry, and the passes are even longer. Critical questions are growing: Should a club that has spent over €400m in two years be so defensive? Is this Madrid's way? Does it reinforce Barcelona's advantage? It may be an entirely logical approach, but some are not happy. Two former coaches agreed: if we had done this, we'd have been sacked; a former Madrid player was privately spitting blood – this, he said, was not worthy of Madrid. And even mad Madridista Tomás Roncero, while talking up the "euphoria", admitted: "It can be hard to take the medicine when it tastes like castor oil."

The match report in AS described Mourinho's approach as "basic, not to say prehistoric". Marca's Santi Segurola called it "defensive, ugly and rough".

"Let's not beat about the bush," added Roberto Palomar, "this clásico was crap: Madrid did not play like Madrid, they played like Inter."

"In many ways", Juanma Trueba wrote, "the game was perfect for Mourinho: he was not hammered, he avoided defeat and he ended up with 10 players, fuelling his narrative for the next few days. But what would have been enough to sack other managers has come about after spending a fortune. If you win fine, but they didn't even win."

None of which would matter. They are, after all, discordant voices. Just as it did not matter when Johan Cruyff called Madrid's approach a "eulogy" to Barcelona's superiority. All the less so if Madrid win the Copa del Rey and the Champions League. Style is, in many ways, a red herring; the vast majority of fans just want to beat Barcelona – and Madrid did have chances on Saturday. More, in fact, than Barcelona. But some voices do matter and on Monday morning Alfredo Di Stéfano, Real Madrid's greatest ever player and the honorary president, spoke out too. "Barcelona's football was simply brilliant," he said in his weekly column. "Their superiority was there for the whole planet to see: the whites were cornered all game. Barcelona play football and dance. They treat the ball with adoration and respect, almost nurturing it. To see this team in action is a delight."

And Madrid? "Madrid," he said, "are a side with no personality. They just run back and forth constantly, tiring themselves out. We saw clearly that their approach was not the right one. Barcelona were a lion, Madrid a mouse."

Talking points

• Talking Points? Aye, right. Like anyone's talking about anything other than Madrid and Barcelona.

• Oh, go on then: Luis García and Levante we salute you! The third-best team in Spain in the second half of the season, they won yet again and are now unbeaten in eight. Even players who aren't Felipe Caicedo are getting goals these days: Rubén scored a beauty. They were supposed to be going down. Now they may even get a European place, alongside Athletic, who got a last-minute winner, and Sevilla. They're just three points off Espanyol in eighth, whose slide continues, and four away from Atlético Madrid in the seventh and final European spot.

• Mind you, Atlético have found their feet and Sunday's 2-2 draw with Espanyol was a Madrid-Barcelona clash that was properly entertaining. Both Atlético goals were gifts: the first a terrible mistake from Galán, the second a marvellous "assist" from Jedward. Oddly enough, gifts apart, Atléti's recovery has come in the wake of ditching Diego Forlán.

• The beast is back. And, with him, so is a Málaga victory. They're out of the relegation zone for the first time in 12 weeks (although a Zaragoza win on Monday night would put them back in it again).

• Adiós, Almería? Six points adrift, they're on their third coach of the season and, although they were the better side for a while against Valencia, they were beaten 3-0 and now look dead and buried. Next Monday they face Real Zaragoza, one of the two sides (along with Málaga) that they are most likely to have to chase down. Lose, and it really will be all over.

Results: Getafe 1-0 Sevilla, Malaga 3-0 Mallorca, Almería 0-3 Valencia, Real Madrid 1-1 Barcelona, Real Sociedad 2-1 Sporting, Levante 2-1 Hércules, Deportivo 2-0 Racing, Osasuna 1-2 Athletic, Espanyol 2-2 Atlético. Monday night: Villarreal v Zaragoza.