Real Madrid vs. Malaga - Preview

Real Madrid start the new year with a Cup game at home against Malaga. For this game Mourinho won\'t count on Di Maria. But the line-up says enough about how serious they treat this game:

Cassilas - Arbeloa, Pepe, Raul Albiol, Marcelo - Diarra, Xabi Alonso - Callejon, Ozil, Ronaldo - Higuain

reserves: Adan, Mejias, Varane, Coentrao, Altintop, Kaka, Khedira, Nuri Sahin, Benzema

So... they are missing Sergio Ramos and Di Maria. Carvalho is also not included in the squad.

About Malaga... 

Caballero - Jesus Gamez, Mathijsen, Demichelis, Monreal - Duda, Toulalan - Cazorla, Isco, Juanmi - Rondon

reserves: Ruben, Eliseu, Sergio Sanchez, Apono, Buonanotte, Camacho, Fernandez, Van Nistelrooy 

So... Maresca, Baptista and Joaquin are missing, all midfield players.

The bet here is rather simple in terms of logic. Real Madrid scored in all home games(except the Barca ones) this season at least 3 goals. 7 of the 12 games ended with over 4.5 goals won, and if we exclude the 2 games against Barca ended 2-2 and 1-3, we have a 70% over 4.5 goals.

Now, we have odds of 2.80 for it here.

 

Malaga have also done very poorly in recent missings against Real Madrid. 1-4 and 0-4 at home, while last season on the road they recorded a 7-0 hammering. This is a cup game, Real Madrid will look to secure a comfortable advantage from the first leg, at the same time they aren\'t exactly bullet-proof at the back as they\'ve allowed a couple of goals this season and Malaga can score.

 

So over 4.5 goals.