Almeria vs Real Madrid tips: Goals on the menu as Los Blancos seek back-to-back away wins
- Sergiu Baltuta
- 18 August 2023
La Liga continues on Saturday as Almeria host Real Madrid at Estadio de los Juegos Mediterraneos. Sergiu Baltuta, who runs SVB Tips on Tipstrr, takes a closer look at the betting options.
Almeria will continue their second season in La Liga with the same objective as last year - to avoid relegation. The team led by Vicente Moreno started the season in the worst possible way, with a 2-0 home defeat against Rayo Vallecano.
Conversely, Real Madrid managed an impressive away at Bilbao, but lost another important player to long-term injury in Eder Militao, who followed goalkeeper Courtois onto the injury list after the goalkeeper suffered a serious injury in training right before the start of the season.
Manager Carlo Ancelotti is looking to bring in Kepa from Chelsea as a loan to replace Courtois, and may also sign another central defender to cover Militao - all joining Jude Bellingham, Joselu and Arda Guler in Real's new-look line-up.
READ MORE:
Militao and Courtois injury update
Almeria have managed only one win in their entire history against Real Madrid, a 2-0 home success in 2008, but other than that it has all been one-way traffic in favour of the team from the capital.
Moreno's team might have lost 2-0 last week, but he can take some positives from a game that saw Almeria create no less than 19 chances without managing to find the back of the net, so he'll be optimistic that his team can put Real's defence under some pressure, and maybe nick a goal or two.
They went down 4-2 at the Bernabeu in April, and notably the last five encounters between these two teams have all produced over 2.5 goals, so we can surely expect more goals here.
Suggested bet:
Real Madrid to win and over 2.5 goals
Karim Benzema scored a hat-trick in that 4-2 win, and his departure to Saudi Arabia has left Ancelotti bereft of a world-class striker.
This has prompted a change in his system from 4-3-3 to 4-3-1-2, a formation that appeared to suit Rodrygo and Bellingham, who both got themselves on the scoresheet.
From there, Real Madrid managed the game impressively, and they are likely to follow a similar path in southern Spain to exert some early pressure on their rivals and current champions, Barcelona.
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