Spanish Football 
/ Tobias Gourlay / 13 April 2012 / Leave a Comment 
Sporting Gijon probably won't win at the Bernabeu again this season
"Pep Guardiola’s men are in cruise control at the moment, getting ahead before half-time and staying there until full-time in each of their last ten league games"
Real Madrid play one of the campaign's easier-looking fixtures and Tobias Gourlay expects them to make no mistake at home to Sporting Gijon - not like last season
Real Madrid v Sporting Gijon
Saturday 19:00
Real [1.07] Sporting [55.0] draw [18.0]
Real Madrid are on a run of difficult fixtures at the moment: Valencia, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Sevilla, Athletic Bilbao... This match is the exception.
Sporting finally showed the gumption their coach is renowned for on Wednesday night, coming from behind twice to beat Levante with a late Gaston Sangoy goal. Javier Clemente's team are still neck deep in the mire, however, because Villarreal also won in midweek and Sporting remain seven points short of safety.
And it is not clear that gumption is enough to beat Real Madrid, even when the boys from the Bernabeu are shorn of their key playmaker. Xabi Alonso's loss of form goes some way to explain why Real have failed to beat Malaga, Villarreal and Valencia in recent weeks and this one-match suspension might help him. This is a good game to miss too - Sporting have earned only two points from 27 on their most recent away trips.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick in the city derby with Atletico on Wednesday. He's matched last season's record (40 league goals) and will pass it at some point very soon. But he's also just one card away from a suspension that would rule him out of el clasico next Saturday night. Real might actually be better off without him for that match (he doesn't usually work hard enough off the ball to contain Barcelona) but Jose Mourinho won't see it that way and is likely to protect his top-scorer once - if - this game is won.
Perhaps this will save Sporting from thrashing, but perhaps it won't. The northerners have conceded more goals than anyone in the last 15 minutes of league games this season (18) and that is exactly the time that Real are most lethal, preying on tired opponents.
It is a concern that Mourinho will be keen to preserve other players too for stiffer challenges ahead, but he will also remember that Sporting won this fixture last season and ended his staggeringly long run of home league games without defeat. They must be made to pay for the impertinence.
This column's backed Real to score at least four goals a few times this season. What Real have often done is score exactly four goals (six times in 16 home games). The defence is in decent shape at the moment, conceding only twice in the last five at the Bernabeu, and 4-0 deserves a punt at [7.6].
Recommended Bet: Back 4-0 @ [7.6] in Correct Score 2 Home
Levante v Barcelona
Saturday 21:00
Levante [17.0] Barcelona [1.22] draw [7.8]
The Handicap Win market is one way to work out which teams in a given league have most outperformed pre-season expectations. In the Primera Division, Levante are heavily odds-on to win this market. Before a ball was kicked they were given a 50-point headstart on Barcelona; that they are currently only 30 points behind this weekend's opponents suggests Juan Ignacio Martinez should be a frontrunner in the coach of the year competition.
The Frogs have not beaten Barcelona in a top-flight game for more than half a century, but they did hold the Catalan giants to a 1-1 draw at the Ciutat de Valencia stadium last season.
Can they derail a Barca team whose coach says they have already crashed and burned out of this season's title race? Probably not.
Pep Guardiola's men are in cruise control at the moment, getting ahead before half-time and staying there until full-time in each of their last ten league games. [1.66] is a generous price for them to make it 11 in a row on Saturday night.
We've mentioned Ronaldo up above, and it's traditional to then mention Messi too. So, Barca's star man has scored 39 league goals of his own this season, finding the back of the net in each of his last nine Liga appearances. Not even he knows where this particular run will end, but you can be sure he'll be odds-on to make it ten in a row this weekend.
If, for some reason, you fancy an upset, then Arouna Kone is your man. On loan from Sevilla, the Ivorian forward has netted in each of his last three outings for Levante.
Recommended Bet: Back Barcelona/Barcelona @ [1.66]
*Follow Tobias on Twitter: @tobiasgourlay
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