Football tips: Real Madrid v Barcelona best bets for Saturday's El Clasico

*All prices are bang up to date with our snazzy widgets, while odds in copy are accurate at time of publishing but subject to change.

With Atletico Madrid dropping points of late they’ve reopened the door to both city rivals Real and Barcelona who sit three and two points behind them respectively. A win or a draw for Barcelona would see the Catalans overtake Diego Simeone’s side, who don’t play until Sunday night away at Real Betis.

Saturday 8pm: Real Madrid v Barcelona
Premier Sports 1/ LaLigaTV

A win for Real would draw them level on points with Atleti, but sit behind them on goal difference. A draw would leave Zinedine Zidane’s side third with Barca top and Atletico second. Both teams are in great form of late and this should be a humdinger. Let’s find some value and three Best Bets for this intriguing La Liga clash.

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The Draw

This will be the 247th meeting between the side across all competitions. We only mention this because of an interesting stat; both teams have won 97 matches each and 52 have ended level. League-wise though they’ve met 90 times in Madrid with the home side winning 53, Barcelona winning 22 and 15 level. As mentioned above both are in great form, Real are unbeaten over their last 12 matches in all competitions and have won five of their last seven at home in the league, drawing one and losing one.

Barcelona are unbeaten over their last nine matches in all competitions, winning seven and drawing two. Their away La Liga form is very impressive too where they’ve won all of their nine most recent fixtures on the road.

Barcelona are seeing most of the action on the market and are favourites, however, the Catalans have failed to beat Real over all three of their most recent matches and while much has been made of Real being without captain Sergio Ramos at the back, Barcelona’s injury table isn’t exactly quiet at the moment and they’re missing a few key players too.

There’s very little between the sides coming into this one, we’re backing the Draw at a very decent price.

Both Teams to Score in the Second Half

Another interesting stat for you; over their five most recent matches in Madrid, none of them saw Both Teams to Score landing. Real kept Barca scoreless in their two wins and Barca kept Real scoreless in their three previous wins.

However, a different stadium, no home fans and the erosion of home advantage have caused many changes to trends in football stats and it’s hard not to see both scoring here. Real are averaging 1.79 goals per home La Liga game while Barcelona are scoring 2.21 per away league match.

Both aren’t conceding many it must be said, 0.64 and 0.71 respectively, but Real have kept just two clean sheets over their last five home matches in all competitions while Barcelona have also only kept two over their five most recent away games.

Both teams share yet another stat, they’ve scored at least one second-half goal in 79% of their respective home/away matches and are averaging 1.14 and 1.21 second-half goals on average each. In La Liga, Real have scored at least one in the final 45 in four of their last five at home while Barca have found the back of the net in the second period in all five of their most recent away league games. There’s value to be had here so we’re backing BTTS in the second half.

Real Madrid to Score Over 1.5 Goals

Real have really found their scoring boots of late. It had been mostly on Karim Benzema to come up with the goals this season, indeed the French striker has 18 over his 25 La Liga appearances, but over the last few weeks especially other Real Madrid players are finally stepping forward and getting on the scoresheet.

Over their last five matches, Real have scored at least two goals in all five. When we look at just their home matches, Real have scored at least two goals in six of their last seven. Looking at home La Liga matches, the record stands at five in their last seven.

Over their last three encounters with Barcelona, home and away, they’ve scored at least two in two of them. Obviously, Barcelona are a fantastic side and don’t concede too many but they’ve conceded at least two goals in three of their last seven away matches so they’re far from perfect. The over Evens odds here are just too high to say no too and with the top spot in the league up for grabs we should see both sides getting a couple each here.