Who: Real Madrid vs Rayo Vallecano
What: Spanish La Liga
Where: Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain
When: Sunday, February 1 at 2pm local time (13:00 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the buildup on media Sport from 10:00 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream.
Real Madrid continue to battle for form in a turbulent season and must quickly shake off their UEFA Champions League woes ahead of the visit of Rayo Vallecano in La Liga on Sunday.
Los Blancos missed out on an automatic place in the last 16 of Europe’s premier club competition when they were defeated at Benfica on Wednesday.
Attention now returns to keeping pace with league leaders and defending champions, Barcelona, on the domestic front.
Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa insisted he would stand by the team’s star players and give them as many minutes as possible, despite debate over whether the team can function effectively with them all on the pitch.
Los Blancos, whose defeat on Wednesday means they must play a further knockout round in the Champions League, have sometimes struggled for balance when too many of their attacking talents play together.
Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Vinicius Junior have completed each of the last four games for Arbeloa, along with goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, while midfielder Fede Valverde started all four and was substituted once.
“I always want to have the best players on the pitch, and the more minutes they can be available to the team for me, the better,” Arbeloa told a news conference, when asked if those five players were “untouchable”.
“These are players who can shake up a match at any moment. There will be people who aren’t Madrid fans who don’t want them on the pitch, but I imagine Madrid supporters want their best players always available, always on the field.
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