Three Point Necessity

Real Madrid vs Sporting Gijon played out a to a goalless stalemate the last time the two sides met earlier this season at El Molinon. This must not be the case at the return leg in fortress Bernabeu this Saturday. It's almost common knowledge now to know that we are tied on points with Barcelona but lead them by goal differential simply because head to head cannot count as of yet because we haven't played them a second time. Another goalless draw would put us undoubtedly two points behind and most likely caught up to on goal differential by an ever dangerous Barcelona who I always assume are unlikely to fail. The Catalans who progressed in Champions League to meet the likes of Cesc Fabregas and co., take on a lowly Zaragoza. Real have issued their squad list which has excluded Benzema, Drenthe, and Kaka once again. The squad list looks very similar to the last against Zaragoza and for another time this season, Marcos Alonso was included. Benzema and Drenthe both touched the ball in training this week but obviously aren't up to speed. I'll be anxious to see if this injury has acted as a rebirth for Benzema. He has never really had a good streak of games to get settled in. He has one good game fallowed up by a few absent performances (whether he was on the field or not). I really think he was brought in to kind of crowd Pipita out as our main striker but little did some daft people realize, Higuain is quickly becoming one of the best strikers in Europe and the world, despite his Champions League miss.

Van der Vaart should expect to get another full game. He mentioned that after the clash vs Valladolid that it was only the second time he played a full match. Even I didn't catch on to that. He was unpopular in the beginning of time and suffered injury hardships but has still proved extremely useful. Even when Kaka returns I'm more than content with either of the on field or even (dun dun dun dunnn) both? Just a wacky thought but you never know. Granero will also probably get some good time. I'd rather Lass sat. If one of the Diarra's should be playing it should be Mahamadou. A friend named Bassam published a great article about the two Diarra's on http://www.real.theoffside.com/. Xabi Alonso should no doubt be the holding midfielder if we decide to go with one but it's games like these where we can possibly try thing like starting our Malain. It's not like I don't trust Diarra in there. After all we won back to back La Liga's with him anchored in there and then after a few games last season his tragic knee injury sidelined him for the season; we lost La Liga. I know I know that's not the only reason, Ruud was gone two and a bunch of other disectable aspects of our failure but this isn't the article for that. I'm not even gonna focus on that. It's history, Can't change it now. Here's my line up to face Gijon.

I don't expect Pellegrini to agree with me, he rarely does but I still back him 100% for the job. I don't care what the press writes. I'd like to see Marcos Alonso get a few minutes for Arbeloa, who hasn't been himself lately if we can establish a good lead. That's the only way the boss will even contemplate putting a cantanero in. I left Granero out, not for any particular reason. I know he will probably start. I sacrificed him for big Diarra. People were talking about seeing Xabi Alonso do more box to box work so I thought "hey, why not?" I'm not underestimating Gijon, but they only have 2 wins since the turn of the year. Obviously we'll still have to keep an eye on Diego Castro Gimenez who has 9 goals and Cuevas who has tallied 5. Also, Ronaldo beware of Gregory, the guy has 10 yellow cards and I know you'll go ape-sh*t if you get knocked (:])

Hopefully we can pull out this result. It should be a routine win but La Liga is everything but routine.

HALA MADRID

Bobby