Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said he hoped his team had turned a corner following a difficult recent time, when speaking after Thursday's Copa del Rey 1-0 quarterfinal win at Leganes.
With unsettled Cristiano Ronaldo rested along with fellow galactico Gareth Bale, a side of youngsters and reserves struggled to turn possession into chances, with their only opportunity of the first half caused by a mistake by home midfielder Ruben Perez and missed by Mateo Kovacic.
Leganes came out more after the break and there were let offs for Madrid when Blancos midfielder Marcos Llorente headed off his own crossbar, and the home side's Nabil El Zhar and Claude Beauvue came close to breaking the deadlock.
Zidane sent on senior stars Luka Modric and Isco towards the end and with time running out Marco Asensio's superb first time finish at the near post put his side in control of the tie ahead of next Wednesday's return at the Bernabeu.
The Blancos coach accepted at the post game news conference that his team's confidence was low after a recent run of form, but said he hoped they could now put a string of positive results together.
"We have to get back to winning games, keeping clean sheets," Zidane said. "Today was a step that way. We cannot say we played a great game, but we got an important result in the tie.
"Today we played a bit worse than against Villarreal last weekend, but we scored and we won.
"We hope this is a turning point. We are happy with the result. We need this for confidence. Sometimes things get a bit more difficult, but we must be patient and know we can come through all together.
"Today the result is very positive for us. Now we want three or four results in a row."
Zidane admitted his much rotated starting XI had lacked fluency in their play for much of the game.
"It's true we found it difficult to find our usual adventure in our play," he said. "But that is normal as many of these players do not play often. And in the end we were a bit better in the second half and scored the goal necessary to win the game."
Centre-back Jesus Vallejo faces another spell on the sidelines after suffering a hamstring problem, while playmaker Dani Ceballos was also substituted after picking up a knock.
"We do not know how bad it is, we will have to see exactly what [Vallejo] has, but he has been injured," Zidane confirmed. "Ceballos was hurt -- I think just a heavy blow."