Real Madrid vs Espanyol

Estadio Santiago Bernabeu is the venue as Real Madrid and Espanyol lock horns in a lopsided La Liga clash.

Despite another scoring blank in the first half, Real Madrid humbled Stuttgart 3-1 at home in their opening Champions League fixture, but there’s still ample room for improvement. Los Blancos return to La Liga action, where they’ve not lost across their opening five matches (W3, D2), seeking a fourth consecutive home victory in all competitions this season. Heavily fancied to achieve that feat, Carlo Ancelotti’s men boast an intimidating 26-match unbeaten league run at the Santiago Bernabeu (W22, D4), with nine of their last ten such fixtures producing a clean sheet (W9, D1). Only the bravest would put it past Real Madrid to add to that impressive tally, especially with their six most recent top-flight victories coming by multi-goal margins and without reply.

On the other hand, Espanyol’s first three La Liga matches on their top-flight return saw them fail to score but only concede twice (D1, L2). However, the visitors have since hit the ground running, netting five times across back-to-back victories against Rayo Vallecano and Deportivo Alaves to set themselves up perfectly for this agonizing road trip. Indeed, the La Liga newcomers haven’t taken three points on this ground since 1996, losing their last nine away league H2Hs by an aggregate score of 26-2! Despite their recent uptick in form, Manolo Gonzalez’s men have yet to score on the road this season, derailing their chances of improving on a disastrous scoring record at the Bernabeu. Before a 3-1 defeat on their last visit to this ground, Espanyol had lost seven straight away H2Hs ‘to nil.’