By I, Andrea Buratti, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3277048
The first El Clasico of the season and it’s a must win for Barcelona who are currently six points behind their bitter rivals. Luis Enrique’s men were only able to draw with Hercules in the cup mid-week, albeit with a second string side, but the result means they’ve won just three of their last eight in all competitions, only netting eight in the process. As always, Lionel Messi is the main threat and the little Argentine is certainly carrying his teammates at the moment, scoring 12 of the clubs last 15 goals.
Real Madrid, meanwhile, are unbeaten in 32 matches across all competitions, including 10 wins in their last 11. Gareth Bale’s injury is a blow but in the middle of the park Luka Modric and Casemiro have returned to full fitness, but perhaps more importantly Cristian Ronaldo has returned to his best goal-scoring form, netting 10 in his last seven. Madrid’s form on the road under Zinedine Zidane in La Liga is imperious, winning 13 of 16 unbeaten matches, including victory at the Camp Nou last season and an impressive 3-0 victory at neighbours Atletico most recently.
These two have been pretty evenly matched over the past five seasons with Barca only just shading the head-to-head W5-D1-L4 and on current form Real look a cracking price at 4.0. With the rest of the Catalans playing poorly, if Los Blanco can nullify Messi to an extent (easier said than done) then they’ve got a fantastic chance of picking up all three points.
Best Bet: Real Madrid to win at 4.00
