Real Madrid will travel to Nou Camp full of confidence and on the back of a 5-match winning streak in all competitions. They’ll face a team, whose form has dipped below par in the past few matches. Real, however, will have a lot of players out with injury for their biggest fixture of the season.
Real’s recent record against Barcelona hasn’t been the very best at Nou Camp, particularly in El Clasico games. Barcelona have lost just 3 of their last 13 games they have played at home, winning 7 and drawing 3. Los Blancos have, however, won 5 of their 9 games against Barcelona in all competitions.
The points table isn’t going to be affected much if Real loses as they have a comfortable lead of 6 points at the top. Should Barcelona win this fixture, it will be their 50th victory over Real in La Liga. If Real win though, it’ll stretch their lead over Barca to 9 points!
Defence
Keylor Navas is expected to take his position between the sticks and he will have to be more than careful for the game as Luis Suarez is the only player to score a brace against him since he joined Real and Barcelona haven’t failed to score in each of their 21 games against Real.
Unlike Barcelona, Real’s back four is pretty much in form and all the first team players will be available for selection, but they have a mammoth task at hand. Carvajal will be at right-back and will have the job of covering Neymar, who has been involved in 5 goals in his last 6 Clasicos (3 goals and 2 assists).
Marcelo will take the left flank and Zidane will have huge responsibilities for him. He will expect him not be swayed away by open spaces as he will have to fall back time and again to cover Lionel Messi, who is Clasico’s top scorer with 21 goals.
Pepe and Sergio Ramos are both fit for the game and are expected to play at the heart of the defence.
Midfield
With Casemiro’s return, Zidane got a massive boost in the midfield. He scraped through without an injury against Cultural Leonesa and is expected to start in the central midfield. Isco and the ever-reliable Luka Modric are expected to play in front the Brazilian in the attacking roles.
Zidane will still be having the likes of Kovacic, James Rodriguez and Marco Asensio on the bench to makeshift the setup if and when needed.
Attack
With the big injury of Gareth Bale, Zidane is very much expected to give chance to Lucas Vasquez and he will be up against Jordi Alba. The other two attackers will be Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, on whom the responsibility of scoring will mostly depend.
