Injuries & Suspensions:

1. Marco Asensio: Muscle injury. Expected return: Jan 14, 2019.
2. Marcos Llorente: Tear in the abductor muscle. Expected return: Jan 21, 2019
3. Mariano Diaz: Sciatic Problem. Expected return: Jan 14, 2019
4. Gareth Bale: Calf Injury. Expected return: Jan 21, 2019

Probable Lineup: Courtois; Carvajal, Varane, Ramos, Marcelo; Casemiro, Modric, Kroos, Vinicius, Vasquez, Benzema.

Opponent's assessment:

La Real have fallen dangerously close to the relegation places in La Liga following four consecutive defeats, while Madrid are now seven points behind Barcelona at the top of the table following our draw with Villarreal on Thursday.

Good luck to both teams and may the better team win.

They're 3 points ahead of Villareal. That doesn't really mean much, but I won't take for granted that we'll beat them. It's good to see that Vinicius starts. There's naturally a lack of maturity in his game, he's only 18 after all, but hopefully he'll get chances to improve on that this season. It's not like we're brimming with quality on the wings, these days. Might as well improve the ones that actually have room to improve.

don't worry , solari says we should appreciate our draws

Even if I interpret that comment from an optimistic point of view, there's little to appreciate about draws, when they occur after needlessly throwing away a lead.

Did that idiot really say that ?

he said we shouldn't undervalue them. which would be cool if this was the epl, but anyone who's been following la liga for the last 10 years should understand that for madrid especially, a draw is like a loss, considering how our rivals for example only lost 1 game last season

Madrid have the lowest Bernabeu attendance in 24 years. Keep flooding the team with unproven kids, my dearly beloved president.

Solari is in over his head, and that comment about not undervaluing draws proves that. I just hope he doesn't turn the locker room upside down before he fecks off. Has as much people skills as Benitez. Yuck, get him away from our team before he destroys it Mou style. He's already made enemies of locker room favourites particularly Navas. Bye douche don't let the door hit you on your way out

In his defense, we all knew he wasn't a great manager or anywhere near before he even got appointed. You can't blame Solari for being Solari, blame Florentino for hiring him.

Also, the future manager, no matter how great they are, needs a proper elite squad to compete with the other elite teams. So as long as Real Madrid don't replace the dead weight and bring in proper world beaters, particularly in the attack, the manager debate is a moot point.

DoC... completely agreed. But we are playing worse than we should be playing. I expected us to play well but have trouble with finishing. We're just not playing well period.

Before our game Cazorla had scored no goals in 14 appearances we are such an embarrassment.

Even in ZZs last season which we thought was a disaster. We were creating countless of chances. Our problem was not putting the chances away. If Benz was scoring at this rate last season we'd competed much better.

ZZ would never make excuses after a draw. Both Lope and Solari have destroyed this team more so Solari for picking fights in these trying times and calling draws ok

For this game I don't want to see Marcelo starting, Reguillon should be our starting LB no questions asked. Ceballos should start for Modric and Vini should come on in attack and Solari needs to quit his beef with Isco. We are going to need him if we want to compete. Only Benz is delivering from the front 3, in fact Lucas too but he doesn't score enough to be a regular for me

Solari has gotten great results and steady the a sinking ship, he manages the players very well, stop acting like he is terrible because he exposed isco like all the other managers before him, LV and isco is the reason the team dropped points and if Solari doesn't wanna throw any body under the bus is fine and he ain't gonna lose locker room again don't see the point in lying so much just avoid calling isco a scrub.

Yeah, Solari is a shit manager and has actually made us play worse off than Lope which I didn't think was possible. That being said, he didn't hire himself, Flo did so I completely agree with DoC. I really did not think I'll find watching Real Madrid to be a chore but here I am.

I guess I deserve this tbh. I rightfully criticized Zidane's final season of La Liga and now I'm experiencing this garbage manager. I must suffer (while enjoying the fact we did win 3 CL titles in a row).

Again, this has nothing to do with Isco- Solari, in his tenure with Castilla and now the first team, has shown absolutely nothing to suggest he is worth managing any first division team, let alone RM. "steadied the ship" ? We have played a bunch of nobodies, and in that time we have been smashed by Eibar, CSKA Moscow, and have BARELY beat the likes of Huesca, and Rayo.

The overall play is unwatchable, hence I cannot bring myself to watch it anymore and have since stopped after the Rayo game I believe.

From what I have seen this season under Solari, we have mostly gotten by on luck (getting lucky goals, or luckily playing really bad opposition, or an underperforming team), and good goalkeeping. Once we come up against decent opposition, I am very worried for the club. I would not be surprised at all with a round of 16 exit of CL and finishing 4th. Is that acceptable? For a club the size of RM with the assets we have? Absolutely not.

Solari is garbage and has to go, along with half of our squad.

Maybe it is coincidental but most Benzema fan boys on the websites I view tend to be in support of Solari since Big Ben is performing this season. Solari also has the benefit of getting results despite playing fucking garbage football so that usually adds to their argument.

But the two decent oppositions we played, we got beaten proper and no, Roma does not count at all. To think this club once had Higuain, Benzema and Ronaldo to choose from. Now it's just Benzema, a bang average "winger" and whatever the fk Bale is.

Some people on here seemed genuinely optimistic after Solari took over, and we were winning the first couple of matches under him against the bottom fodder of the league. They didn't seem to buy into the whole "new coach syndrome" that was quickly pointed to (by DoC, I believe). It's funny how fast things can change.

I'm taking credit for the new manager bounce that I called before he even started his first game, and predicted the resulting downfall.

at home i'm positive we will beat la real. i don't see how we can lose or even draw against them, they've been poor this season, and its not just their defense. their only chance would be to seat back and defend deep, but if we score first and early, i don't see them equalizing. villareal, there could be concern cos we could foul and cazorla is good from set pieces, but with sociedad, i'm really not worried, especially not at home......unless the fans go rogue and make the players uncomfortable, we should get all 3 points

Line ups out

Marcelo keeps his place, no Ceballos, no Isco, Modric keeps his place. Kill me now

At least Vini starts. Hopefully replaces Asensio in the pecking order

Marcelo, Ramos and Casemiro..... sigh

Good luck to everyone watching the match.

Hot. Fucking. Garbage.

we should honestly be beating these guys. smh, like what are we playing at right now?

titosantill wrote: we should honestly be beating these guys. smh, like what are we playing at right now?

It's called steadying the ship football.

we don't even create chances. Benz should have scored early on... but other than that, we're just snatching at chances as opposed to creating them.

My suggestion? Lucas is useless. Casemiro is useless. Kroos is useless. Sub them all.