Ronaldo left Real for Italy in a £100million deal in the summer and reports claim Marcelo is set to join him because of the La Liga giants’ struggles since the Portuguese star’s exit.

However, the Brazilian left-back claims he is not looking to engineer a move from the Bernabeu.

“It's never entered my mind to leave and look for another option,” he said.

“I have always done everything possible to stay at Real Madrid and I've never thought about playing time.

“If I had 15 minutes in every game, I'd give everything in those 15 minutes to play more and win more.”

On Ronaldo, he added: "It is clear that if the best player in the world is not in your team, you will miss him.

“But it does not mean that we do not have the best in the world in each position. Any team wants to have Cristiano, but Madrid will continue to be Madrid."

Real are currently fourth in La Liga and five points behind leaders Barcelona.

They were humiliated by their better rivals in a 5-1 defeat in El Clasico in November - a game that saw Julen Lopetegui sacked after only 14 games in charge.

Santiago Solari was promoted from the Real Madrid B team to replace Lopetegui and made a flying start to life in the top job but engineered a shock 3-0 home defeat by CSKA Moscow in the Champions League on Wednesday night.

Some players appeared to be the subject of boos from their own fans during the game but Marcelo, 30, insists the criticism is not affecting them ahead of Saturday’s home clash with Rayo Vallecano.

"The outside should not affect us. When we win a game, we know that we are not the best in the universe, but when we lose we are not the worst," he added.

“We always work and try to do things well.

"We still have not arrived in February, which is when the season starts to decide.

“It was not normal to draw conclusions in September, when we had only one month of competition.

“You can criticise, but assess a season at this point is crazy. We have the Club World Cup in a few days that we have to win and we are alive in all competitions."