Levante up against it with visit of Real Madrid

Real Madrid travel to Valencia to play Levante knowing that they can not afford to drop any more points in their bid to win their first La Liga title since the 2011/12 season. Having suffered a difficult start to the season, including a home loss to local rivals Atletico Madrid and an away defeat to Real Sociedad, a match which Real Madrid were leading, Los Blancos form has improved significantly.

A comfortable 5-0 home win over struggling Athletic Bilbao followed a 5-1 victory, also at the Bernabeu against Elche and a stunning 8-2 away win against newly promoted Deportivo La Coruna. Levante on the other hand have endured a difficult time since the first ball of the season was kicked and have lost all three of their home games to date, including a 5-0 defeat to Barcelona and more recently a 2-0 loss to Rayo Vallecano. Improvement was shown by Levante in a 3-3 draw last time out away to Eibar but the form of the previous two seasons continues to elude them and they are 18/1 with BetVictor to take all three points from this game. Real Madrid come in to the match as favourites at 2/9 with william hill and considering the form of the two teams, that is hardly surprising.

If preparing for the visit of Real Madrid was not difficult enough in it`s own right, the fact that Levante manager Jose Luis Mendilibar has a growing injury list to contend with only makes matters worse. Key players including David Navarro, Nikos Karabelas, Juanfran, Lukas Vyntra and Rafael Martins are all out injured. In addition to this, Levante have yet to score a single goal at home and this makes the 11/10 from SkyBet for Real Madrid to win the match to nil a tempting offer. One thing that could work in the favour of Levante is that many of Real Madrid`s stars have been away on international duty over the last two weeks and may be fatigued. Factor in the away Champions League match four days after this game in Liverpool, plus El Classico next weekend and manager Carlo Ancelotti may be looking to shuffle the pack. This could disturb the rhythm that Real Madrid have built up and Levante might be able to use this to their advantage and sneak a draw, which is 13/2 with bet365.

However, one player who will definitely feature, if fit, is Cristiano Ronaldo, who looked in good shape for Portugal against Denmark on Tuesday night and is 13/5 with BetVictor to score the opening goal of the game. Another player who performed well during the international break was Gareth Bale, helping Wales climb to the top of their group and the Welshman is 9/2 with paddypower to score the first goal. Real Madrid have scored 20 goals in their last four league games and now Levante have lost goalkeeper Keylor Navas to the Madrid club, Ancelotti will be hoping his team can add to that total. BetVictor have odds of 39/40 for there to be over 3.5 goals in the game. In those last four league matches mentioned above, Real Madrid have led at both half-time and full-time and BetVictor offer 3/5 for the same thing to happen in this match.

Go To bet365

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17/10/2014     © Frixo 2024