You are right, it seems a very difficult season for Real Madrid now. The squad looks not as good as at the previous season. Some key players showed not a really impressive performance so far. While new players like Hazard still brings no big impacts for Real Madrid on the field. Also, many other reasons as you stated above that can be obstacles for Real Madrid to come back to the top of La Liga standings. However, we cannot say that "Barcelona and Real Madrid will fail", who knows if they can back stronger after mid-season.