Barcelona's recent matches have not been good, although they have won three of their four games and drawn one... Barcelona are conceding a lot of goals at the moment, which indicates problems in defence... Of all the La Liga clubs, only Real look very good right now... I think that this season Barcelona will have more problems than last season, when they became champions...
It's still early in the season and there's still a lot of time for the teams to improve, Barcelona currently looks weak in terms of defense but Real Madrid also has problems in the front line, in the last few matches Real Madrid has had quite a hard time scoring goals.
So I think these two top La Liga teams have different problems now, but how these teams can handle them and get out of these problems will be profitable for them to be able to chase the title this season.
Ronald Araujo's absence due to injury, and Christensen's inconsistency in several matches, plus, Xavi is still trying to play his second tier players such as Sergi Roberto, making Barcelona's defense a little slack. In the end, in four matches they also conceded four goals. Of course, Xavi has work to do to improve his defensive line, and fortunately Barcelona now has Joao Cancelo. It is very likely that Joao Cancelo will be included in Barcelona's starting eleven in the future, while waiting for Araujo to recover from his injury. at least Xavi has a solution for his defense line, he just needs to improve the consistency of his players.
On the other hand, Madrid's condition is not so good. they have many injured players, starting from the main goalkeeper, Ceballos, Militao and Vini Jr. If one of the Madrid players gets injured in the next match, this will be a big problem for them. and yes, referring to what you said, Don Carlo cannot continue to only depend on Bellingham up front. In the last match, Madrid had quite a hard time beating their opposing team.
Next, the competition will be even more difficult for both Madrid and Barcelona. because after the Champions League competition starts, their match schedule will be quite busy. and we will see, which team will remain consistent.