Real Madrid - Las Palmas, La Liga 15/16: Match preview

A full week without a Champions League game or any international friendlies seemed a great chance for Los Blancos to recover some of their injured players, but once again Rafa Benítez will have to work hard to choose a good lineup to face Las Palmas. Keylor the Panther Navas has been left out of the squad list because of soreness, and Sergio Ramos, who featured in Balaídos last week, will not play in order to avoid unnecessary risks.

But the current leaders in La Liga must not make excuses and get a victory tomorrow to keep the leadership before receiving Paris Saint-Germain in a fate-defining game in the Champions League. Pepe is back and Kovacic is fully recovered, and so coach Benítez might even have a chance to rest some of his midfielders in a game that seems, a priori, quite easy for Los Blancos.

That's precisely what it is, a game that Los Blancos must win against a rival that everyone will, probably, wrongly consider to be quite easy. It is true that Las Palmas have only managed to win six points in nine games in La Liga and that they are trying to build a new project under coach Quique Setién after Herrera was fired, but one should also take into account that they put Atlético de Madrid, Barcelona and Celta in trouble. A team with so talented players as Viera, Mesa or, especially, Araújo upfront must be taken into consideration, and Real Madrid's defenders will need to be focused in order not to suffer.

Because if things don't go well and Las Palmas' strikers get their chances, Navas will not be there to save us. Kiko Casilla, who was signed, in theory, to be De Gea's backup, has not had a chance yet to take the starting spot from Keylor and, although tomorrow's game is quite unlikely to make Benítez change his mind, will for sure want to make an impression. Hopefully Real Madrid's strikers will settle the game soon enough and we won't have to see Real Madrid's goalkeeper on screen a lot.

Projected lineups

Real Madrid: Casilla; Danilo, Pepe, Varane, Marcelo; Casemiro, Kroos, Kovacic, Isco; Jesé, Ronaldo.

Las Palmas: Varas; Simón, Bigas, Artiles, Garrido; Vicente, El Zhar, Tana, Mesa, Viera; Araújo.