Real Madrid vs Athletic Bilbao Betting Tips and Predictions

Zinedine Zidane will be content with the start he has made with 13 points from 5 games so far but they have all come against weaker sides than Athletic so this could be his toughest game yet although home advantage means Real are still very strong favourites to win it.

Indeed it would be wrong to judge Zidane yet but we should get some more clues about how strong his side’s defensive set-up is when they take on an Athletic Bilbao side that has one of the better goalscoring records in the league. This is a tricky game to come just a few days before they travel to Rome in the Champions League and they weren’t entirely convincing in the 2-1 win at Granada last time out relying on a cracking strike from Luca Modric to seal a late win.

At home though Real have a fearsome record since losing El Clasico. They’ve won all 7 matches at the Bernabeu since scoring an incredible 41 goals, more than some sides will manage to net in a whole season home and away. They’ve scored 5 or more in all of Zidane’s home games and it’s hard to see them not winning this especially given Athletic will be without the suspended Inaki Williams and San Jose, while Raul Garcia is injured.

The Basques are only 3 places below Real in the league though and have taken 7 points from their last 3 matches. They created plenty of chances on their last visit to Madrid against an Atleti side who are better defensively than Los Blancos. They scored 1 goal and could have had more and will fancy they can get on the scoresheet here too.

However it’s hard to look past Real to grab all the points so consider backing a home win and both teams to score at 11/10.

It’s unlikely that Los Blancos will be able to simply stroll to victory here given this is always a passionate affair and Athletic will fight to the whistle unlike one or two recent visitors to the Bernabeu, who have barely put up any resistance. Therefore another 5 or 6 goal win seems unlikely and backing Real Madrid to win 3-1 at 9/1 is a decent shout in the correct score market.