La Liga Preview: Real Madrid won't make sick Parakeets feel any better

Spanish Football / Tobias Gourlay / 04 February 2010 / Leave a Comment

At the Riazor last weekend Guti and Karim Benzema showed that they have a special understanding.

Recommended Bets: Back Barcelona Clean Sheet at around [2.0] v Getafe; back Real Madrid Clean Sheet at around [2.0] v Espanyol; back Real Mallorca at [2.41] to beat Villarreal

Tobias Gourlay finds ways to make money on the back of three scorching-hot home records.

Last weekend Real Madrid won away to Deportivo La Coruna for the first time since 1991 to keep Barcelona's lead at the top of the table to five points. Just below them, Sevilla jumped from fourth to sixth by beating Valencia, who are still third, but now eight points behind Real.

The top two both play at home this Saturday. Barca are up against Getafe, who drew for the first time in La Liga this season last Sunday. Coach Michel would accept another point from his team's trip to the Camp Nou. El Geta managed exactly that here last season, but, in view of the seven defeats from their most recent nine away games, it would be foolhardy to call anything other than another home win for the champions.

They scored four second-half goals against Sevilla a fortnight ago, but immediately prior to that had only three in five hours at the Camp Nou. The games were tricky ones - Real Madrid, Villarreal, who played them in exactly the right fashion, and a derby with Espanyol - but with Zlatan Ibrahimovic so clearly out of form the best bet might be the Clean Sheet, which should become available somewhere close to evens.

Real will likely find three points even easier to come by. They have, after all, won 10/10 at the Santiago Bernabeu so far. You might think there's value about a win price of [1.23] - all the more so when you've heard Espanyol's numbers - but there's more to think about. Los Merengues have been ahead by half-time in eight of them, the margin of victory has been at least two goals in eight of them, and they have clean sheets from seven of them.

Visiting Espanyol have neither scored nor earned a point from any of their last five on the road. In fact, they've located the onion-bag in only one of nine away games to this point. The Real Clean Sheet will be a similar price to the Barca one and just as good value, despite ongoing concerns about the defensive unit in front of Iker Casillas.

At least Espanyol don't tend to get thrashed. Only two of their nine previous opponents have beaten them by more than one goal. But they do tend to go behind early - before half-time in four of their last five defeats - which rather suggests Real Madrid/Real Madrid in the Half Time/Full Time double-result market is the pick of the bets at [1.73]. However, because Real, who showed at the Riazor a week ago that Cristiano Ronaldo sendings-off can do wonders for team spirit, have scored at least twice in 9/10 - and obviously aren't going to concede - the longer price about Real -2.0 ([2.1]) might be preferred. There's a caveat to all of this though: Los Periquitos usually set themselves up to frustrate the Big Two and have been quite successful at it in recent seasons - they haven't lost to either of them by more than a single goal since 2006.

One other team still has a perfect home record. They might have had almost as many owners (three) as fans at Son Moix this season, but Real Mallorca's record there is a most convincing W9-D0-L0 in La Liga. They lost to Xerez seven days ago, which is a touch embarrassing, but are well used to bouncing back from away defeats.

Villarreal come to the island for Sunday afternoon's game without a coach - they sacked Ernesto Valverde after losing at home to Osasuna in the last round of matches. He had to go because the players were beginning to speak out in public against him. The team might have improved its attitude for Juan Carlos Garrido, an internal promotion from B-team coach, but a new injury for international winger Santi Cazorla and an away record of W1-D2-L6 mean Mallorca are too good to miss at [2.41] to make a perfect 10.