Real Madrid will travel to Catalonia to take on RCD Espanyol at the RCDE Stadium on Tuesday night at the back of a comfortable 4-o win against Deportivo Alaves in their last league outing. The Galacticos are currently in sensational form with five successive victories to their name across all competitions.
However, Zinedine Zidane’s side are still 14 points behind Barcelona in third place and are in need of points to close the gap to their Catalan rivals. Meanwhile, the home team have struggled in the league so far and are occupying 15th place in the La Liga table but are still 8 points above the relegation zone. They could move up two places if they can manage to bag the three points on Tuesday.
The recent history of the fixture makes a grim reading for Espanyol as they have lost their last 11 meetings with Los Blancos. Zidane is expected to opt for his favoured 4-4-2 formation and could name an unchanged side for this contest.
4-4-2 Real Madrid Predicted Lineup To Face Espanyol
Defence
Keylor Navas will once again start in goal for Los Blancos and is expected to be shielded by a back four of Raphael Varane and Nacho in central defence while Dani Carvajal takes his place at right-back and Theo Hernandez starts on the left-hand side of the backline in place of the injured Marcelo.
Zinedine Zidane will be hoping that his defenders can keep back to back clean sheets after their recent defensive shut-out versus Deportivo Alaves on Saturday.
Midfield
Mateo Kovacic and Casemiro will line up as the holding midfielders while Gareth Bale and Lucas Vasquez will play on the wings. The Madrid midfield will be responsible for creating and scoring goals on the day to try and continue their recent good run of four victories in a row across all competitions.
Bale scored in their last league outing and will look to get himself amongst the goal-scorers once again on Tuesday night.
Attack
The duo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema is expected to lead the line for Real Madrid up top. Ronaldo has been in excellent form of late which has seen him score eight goals in his past four matches for the Galacticos in all competitions. The Portuguese superstar will look to add to his goal tally of 28 goals in 32 matches this season when he laces up to face the Espanyol defence on Tuesday. It remains to be seen if he can get his name on the scoresheet against Quique Sánchez Flores’ side.
