• Barcelona to win 3-1 – 9/1
  
• Valencia to win 2-1 – 8/1
  
• Atletico to win 3-2 – 33/1
  
• Real Sociedad to win 2-1 – 9/1
• Cristiano Ronaldo to score and Real to win – 8/11

WIN ACCA:
Barcelona, Valencia, Atletico, Real Sociedad and Real Madrid all to win – 15/2

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Barcelona v Malaga – Saturday 3pm

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The standard expression is: A week is a long time in politics.

This weekend should prove that five months is an eternity in football. There was a shocking, shocking stat last time Barça went up against these lads from the Costa Del Sol capital – at La Rosaleda late last September. Luis Enrique’s team not only drew 0-0 but didn’t have a shot on target.

That was then, this is now. Back in September coach Javi Gracia could start with Camacho in midfield and Amrabat up front. Both suspended now from the team which has 66 bookings and five red cards in their 24 League matches. They’ll be missed.

Now Suárez, unavailable in September, is a major force for good in Barça’s ‘Goals For’ column – both those he tucks away and, more impressively still, those he either creates directly via an assist or via the tremendous job he does of taking players away from Messi and Neymar.

@leomessi & @luissuarez9 #igersFCB #FCBarcelona

A photo posted by FC Barcelona (@fcbarcelona) on Feb 15, 2015 at 2:26pm PST

Barcelona have scored 56 times in the subsequent 18 games, are Europe’s form side, bar none, and tend to thump Málaga at the Camp Nou. Not since Louis Van Gaal was the manager in late 1999 the current manager, Luis Enrique, only lasted 61 minutes and previous manager Pep Guardiola only managed 69 minutes have Málaga won at Barcelona. The intervening years are littered with four, five and six goal defeats, just twice has their been only a single goal margin.

Gracia says: “We’ll have to be very, very, very good to take a point but we’ll attack and counter-attack when we can”

So, once again, we probably aren’t debating the result (is my guess) – just its margin.
The visitors’ form has fallen off a cliff. One win in seven league matches since just before Christmas.
It should be a slaughter. But will it?

Take two things into account. Luis Enrique might ‘protect’ Neymar before the City game and Carlos Kameni just loves to thwart Barcelona. The Cameroon keeper has played this lot more times than any other team since arriving in Spanish football and not only won at the Camp Nou with Espanyol he has three 0-0 draws against Barça for Espanyol and Málaga.

Maybe, just maybe, Kameni has one of ‘those’ days, Barcelona hold something in reserve for Lancashire and the win margin is lower than it should be?

Messi has fourteen goals in his last ten matches, 12 in 14 against Málaga over the last ten years. For value have a look at Pedro, Rafinha and Rakitic again – although they are outsiders compared to the Neymar-Messi-Suárez trident which is functioning so well. In fact I spent part of Thursday interviewing a very happy, very confident Suárez. Great goal last week, another this I’d bet.

• Graham’s Bet: Barcelona to win 3-1
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Cordoba v Valencia – Saturday 5pm
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You’re probably all too young to remember it but there used to be a US comedy show called ‘Soap’ which, as you may be able to deduce, took the mickey right out of soap-operas. It’s where Billy Crystal made it big. The voiceover at the beginning used to detail who was related to whom, who was doing the dirty with whom, who hated whom, who secretly loved … ok, you get the picture.

The tagline used to be: ‘Confused? You won’t be after this episode of Soap!’ So it is with the sitcom: ‘Suspension!’ at Valencia.

André Gomes is back from suspension, while Enzo Pérez and Antonio Barragán are out because of it. The week before it was Nico Otamendi and Joao Cancelo suspended but now Cancelo will replace Barragán at right back … because he’s, you’ve got it, suspended.

And just to continue the ‘Confused…?’ theme who was it that burned great chunks out of the Cordoba training ground? It’s a mystery, honest it is. But someone took the time to ensure that the team won’t be able to use their training pitch for a long, long time. Unless they pay local experts to renovate it…
Djukic’s team have been training in the stadium meaning the playing surface won’t be all that.

Bad news for the locals – Fede Cartabia, dashing winger and their best player I’d say, is on loan from Valencia so the ‘Clause of Fear’ as it’s called here kicks in. ‘No play!’ say Valencia.
Nuno has had los Che practising shooting all week so you’re obviously guaranteed that it’ll be a header that wins this [Negredo] but Parejo is hitting the net for fun and strikes from distance, Feghouli should start and love a long range effort as does the returning Gomes who’s no longer… suspended.
Away win, HAS to be for a Valencia trying to learn how to win on the road in order to reach the Champions league.

• Graham’s Bet: Valencia to win 2-1
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Atletico Madrid v Almeria – Saturday 7pm
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Right? A safety pin through the nostril is a heavenly look for one guy, cashmere sweater and cravat for the next. Thus: Luis Enrique is obsessed, OBSESSED I tell you, by secrecy over training and team selection at Barcelona.

On the other hand Diego Simeone, similarly intense as a guy and a manager, practically sold state secrets by voluntarily naming Atlético’s starting XI for this Saturday night game early on Friday afternoon! It is:

Moyá; Juanfran, Godín, Miranda, Siqueira; Saúl, Tiago, Gabi, Arda; Griezmann, Mandzukic

As he was doing it I swear I could hear Lucho Enrique shrieking ‘are you flaming mad you idiot?!!!’ in horror. This has the makings of a good game. Juan Ignacio Martinez, know to everyone as JIM, is a real student of Rafa Benitez, gets his teams organised and tough to break down and he’s got a couple of really lively and threatening players in Thievy [who’s not the soundest temperament-wise] and Hemed [worth an ‘any-time’ punt] up front.

Atleti were simply posted missing last week but as Simeone pointed out they are a totally different side at home, in front of their rabidly supportive fans, and with the elegant Arda Turan in the side.
Unless Simeone’s team get ahead promptly there’s the possibility of a hangover from last week’d defeat to Celta – but with Arda back, Tiago fit again and no experimental tactical nonsense like the coach tried last week the Champions should punch their weight again.

• Graham’s Bet: Atletico to win 3-2
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Real Sociedad v Sevilla – Sunday 11am
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Well now. David Moyes has a fan in Valencia owner Peter Lim and here’s a chance for the Scot to do the Singaporean a favour by defeating the fifth-placed side – Valencia’s main Champions League rivals.
La Real have been working hard this week. There have been a couple of double training sessions, the first of which prevented Moyes from going back to Lancashire and expert-analysing the Preston North End v Manchester United FA Cup tie on Monday night.

What La Real did NOT have was a testing and draining Europa League tie on Thursday night followed by the long trip up north from Andalusia to the Basque Country and then a Sunday midday kick off. More, Sevilla’s Europa League tie with Borussia Moenchengladbach is now delicately balanced at 1-0 and the defending champions prize retaining the trophy very, very highly. Second leg next week – could some of Unai Emery’s men have the match in Germany as a higher priority than this one?

Perhaps, just perhaps, all this narrows the gap between the two sides slightly. Grzegorz Krychowiak, a titan for Sevilla in recent weeks, is suspended for his red card last week. Iborra might be worth looking at for a goal – he’s got himself in a cartload of scoring positions over the last few games.

So, make your own careful judgments but with Canales, Chory Prieto, Granero and Agirretxe all looking in form there’s a hint that La Real could take advantage of the situation and finally notch a win [there’s only been one of them since beating Barcelona on January 4]. IF you back them and they are ahead with ten minutes left mebbe Cash Out, there’s a long history of La Real letting a result slip away in the late stages of games this season.

• Graham’s Bet: Real Sociedad to win 2-1
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Elche v Real Madrid – Sunday 8pm
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‘I’d like a piece of their crisis!’ was the tone of the Elche coach’s press conference before this match.

Asked, legitimately enough, whether this was the best time of the season to be hosting Madrid, Fran Escribá was invited to move away from the wall but didn’t want to dance. Elche have put two wins together on the trot when, previously, they looked like they couldn’t even spell the word if you gave them w_n as a starter clue.

Los Blancos have lost three times this year and Carlo Ancelotti found himself, as per usual with this brutally demanding club, bang in the middle of a hurricane of doubts and criticism. But his rival this Sunday pointed out:

“They’ve one foot in the Champions League quarter final where they are defending champions, they are still league leaders and they just became World Club champions. That’s a very ‘Real Madrid’ kind of crisis”

Escribá looks like a talent. His “dream” is to go back and manage Atlético on his own [where he was assistant to Quique Sanchez Flores], so this is something of a job audition for the future. “It’s a good moment to face Madrid firstly because of how we are playing, with confidence. “Two months ago it’s possible that the players and people around the club might have said that an ‘honourable defeat’ was acceptable against Madrid. “Now my players feel strong – capable of winning”

Nice little atmosphere brewing – Elche are the ninth-best supported club in La Liga this season. Madrid will need to be up for it. If you back ‘shocks’ look at their hustle-bustle striker Jonathas and their dancing-feet winger Garry Rodrigues. Me? I think Madrid aren’t near their best yet but they are shaking off their lethargy and they won here last season in the 90th minute (1-2) thanks to Ronaldo. Something similar this time – Ronaldo and mebbe Isco? Ps: think there’s a Bale goal coming because he’s begun to work a good deal harder.

• Graham’s Bet: Cristiano Ronaldo to score and Real to win – 8/11
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Joe Cole

New signing Cole enjoyed a fine debut on Thursday evening at Anfield when he was at the heart of most of the Reds’ best moves in the 2-0 second-leg win over the Macedonian minnows, that set up a 4-0 overall victory in the tie.

However, despite the comfortable win and the impressive passing and movement on show in the game from Roy Hodgson’s side, the former Chelsea ace insists it will be a whole different kettle of fish against the Gunners and they will need to be better if they are also to kick off their domestic campaign with a win.

Liverpool’s new number 10 says the return of World Cup finalists Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina will automatically raise the quality level but he is well aware there is plenty of hard work to be done on the training pitch as well ahead of the clash against Arsene Wenger’s men (Liverpool 5/4, Arsenal 7/4 to win – 90 minutes).

“We’ve had two (competitive) games now and we’ve got Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt, Pepe Reina and the others to come back,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot to work on and there is a lot for us to do. We’ve got to come together and continue to improve.

“We have to keep working hard every day on the training pitch and go from there. We know we’ve got a long way to go.”

Cole appears to revel in the role Hodgson played him in on Thursday – just ahead of England colleague Steven Gerrard in a central attacking position – but he stresses it is far too early to assess his performance or that of the side in general until at least six games into the new campaign.

“You can’t assess anything on the first six games of the season, you have to judge us in May,” he added.

Liverpool have been drawn against Trabzonspor in the final play-off before the Europa League (Reds 9/1 – Outright) reverts to a group format and will be strong favourites to progress despite a tricky second leg in Turkey at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, Juventus midfielder Christian Poulsen is expected to complete a move to Anfield early next week in a deal that could cost the Reds up to £6million.

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