Real Madrid will face Espanyol tonight at the Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium (22:00 CET). Juande Ramos’ men want their tenth straight victory in La Liga to put more pressure on leaders Barcelona, whom Espanyol defeated last week at Camp Nou.

Real Madrid and Espanyol share a common foe: Barcelona. This has brought them close together, but their friendship is set aside twice a year when they are forced to come face to face in La Liga.

Different situations
The Whites reduced their distance with Barcelona to seven points last week thanks to their victory over Betis and Barça’s defeat against Espanyol. The latter’s triumph seems to have made them stronger, but hey are still in the fight to avoid relegation. De la Peña scored his first goal in four years last week and could be lethal against the Madridistas with his renewed strength. Tamudo also seems to be getting stronger in each game since he recovered from his injury.

Guti or Sneijder
Pochettino will probably also line-up Lola, Chica and Rufete, who didn’t play last week. On the other hand, Real Madrid won’t be able to use Fernando Gago because he was injured with a sprained ankle against Liverpool. Guti will probably take his place, but Juande could also decide to line-up Sneijder with Lass. Robben, Higuain, Raul and Huntelaar will surely form the attacking front -the latter has scored three goals in the last two league games-.

Tonight’s will be the 150th clash between both sides. The Whites have defeated Espanyol 84 times and lost just 34 games. They have drawn on 31 occasions, the last time being earlier this season at the Bernabeu (2-2). The Madridistas haven’t won against them in Barcelona since the 2006/07 campaign (3-0) and they are forced to break this spell in order to continue putting pressure on Barcelona.