This week has been a good one for Madrid as they finally confirm the signing of 18 yr old Canales from Racing Santander. Canales will join Madrid at the end of this season and depending on his pre-season training and form will be either loaned out or incorporated in the first team. Also, Cristiano Ronaldo returns to playing action after sitting on the sidelines for more than two weeks with a suspension. Benzema misses the trip with an injury however centre back Garay makes the cut. Guti sprained his ankle during training so it seems that Manuel Pellegrini will employ Kaka, Alonso, Lass and Granero in midfield with HIguain and Ronaldo playing in attack. St. Iker will be completing 500 matches with Los Blancos this weekend and he certainly would want a win with a clean sheet.
Xerez come into the match beating Mallorca by two goals to one but they have had a pretty bad start to this season with only one win in the last six games. The stats are definitely stacked against them with a total of 35 goals conceded as compared to 10 scored this season and they would definitely want to pull their socks and deliver a better performance under their new coach. On the other hand, Pellegrini has some thinking to do with the Champions League match this midweek and he certainly wouldn’t want to lose out on any of his star players due to injury and Xerez’s home stadium particularly doesn’t have the best of pitches which would be worrisome to MP.
It seems that Madrid will easily defeat Xerez with their star power and a 2 – 0 victory would be sufficient to put the pressure on Barcelona who have a dangerous Atletico side to face. The match starts at 12:30 am IST on 13th February.
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