Real Madrid have made a lot of efforts to strengthen their XI this season. However, they still need to have stronger players in the midfield, they have not been able to strengthen it that much down the line. Barcelona's XI is currently very strong and they are fighting with more excitement than last season. According to Barcelona's performance, I think they are ready to compete a lot this season, if they can play strongly against Real Madrid this season, they will be in the lead to win the championship this season as well as last season. However, if Barcelona will have enough competition and excitement with Real Madrid this season, it will be impossible to confirm now, although Real Madrid is planning to strengthen their players in the meantime.
Replacing players like Tony Kross or Modric will be very difficult. They are really making a lot of effort to try to make Real Madrid a team that can compete with Barcelona, but they are really struggling, we need to be patient.It takes time and perseverance but I'm confident they'll get there.
One of the things that affects a team is relying too much on some set of players and not giving other players the privilege to feature in most of their matches that is why when some particular set of players leaves the team it becomes difficult to find a perfect replacement who will fit in so well in their positions. Toni Kroos and Luka Modric really made Real Madrid's midfield interesting but as soon as Toni Kroos left, the midfield became shaky but since Luka Modric was still around it didn't affect the team much and now he has left for AC Milan which means that the midfield of Real Madrid will become porous because there is no perfect replacement for the two strongholds that held their midfield firmly for years. Real Madrid really need to strengthen their midfield again to be able to compete against Barcelona in the title race.