- 1 Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona: Rodri’s hamstring and a two-point gap at the Metropolitano
- 2 Atletico Madrid: three straight 1-0 and 2-0 league wins, and Romero still doubtful
- 3 Barcelona: 46 league goals, and a back line down to the bare bones
- 4 Free La Liga Prediction: Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona
- 5 About our free predictions
- 6 No commitment from us
- 7 Information changes
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Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona: Rodri’s hamstring and a two-point gap at the Metropolitano 
Rodri came off at half-time of Barcelona’s 3-0 win over Aston Villa on Tuesday with a hamstring problem, and Hansi Flick couldn’t say afterwards whether he’d make the trip to Madrid. He’d played all 90 minutes of the 6-1 win over Alaves three days earlier.
Barcelona go to the Riyadh Air Metropolitano on Sunday 8 November, kick-off 20:00 UK time, with 30 points from 11 La Liga games. Atletico Madrid have 28. A home win would put Diego Simeone’s side top.
The two sets of numbers barely overlap. Barcelona have scored 46 league goals and conceded 12. Atletico have scored 22 and conceded eight, with six clean sheets against Barcelona’s four.
Tuesday went badly for one of them. Atletico lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich in the Champions League, their first defeat in a couple of months, while Raphinha scored twice and Lamine Yamal once against Villa at Camp Nou.
Both sides played on the same night, so neither gets a rest advantage. I’d also ignore the long-term record, which reads 29 wins to eight in Barcelona’s favour, because last season looked nothing like it. Atletico knocked Barcelona out of last season’s Champions League at the quarter-final stage and beat them in the Copa del Rey semi-finals.
The ten meetings since Flick took over have produced 37 goals. I keep coming back to that figure.
Atletico Madrid: three straight 1-0 and 2-0 league wins, and Romero still doubtful 
Atletico have won nine of their 11 league games, and the last three show exactly how they’ve done it: 2-0 at Levante, 1-0 at home to Deportivo La Coruna and 1-0 at Espanyol. Three wins, four goals scored, none conceded.
They’ve also beaten Real Madrid 2-1 in the derby, and that result still stands as the last time anyone took three points off Jose Mourinho’s side. A 2-0 win over Manchester United and a 1-1 draw with Stuttgart came in the same stretch.
Cristian Romero is the concern. A muscle strain has already cost him two matches, he was an unused substitute at Levante, he missed training before Bayern and Simeone left him out of the squad on Tuesday. He’s listed as back in training but remains a doubt for Sunday, and Johnny Cardoso is in the same position.
Without Romero, Atletico conceded twice to Bayern. That’s a quarter of their league total for the whole season in one evening, and Barcelona bring a front line with 25 league goals between Raphinha and Yamal alone.
Scoring is the other question. Alex Baena has five league goals, which puts him ten behind Raphinha, and Atletico average exactly two a game in La Liga to Barcelona’s 4.2.
Six clean sheets from 11 games is the best argument for Simeone’s side, and Jan Oblak has been behind all of them. Bayern’s two goals on Tuesday were the first sign in a while that the run can be broken by a top attack.
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Barcelona: 46 league goals, and a back line down to the bare bones 
Raphinha has 15 La Liga goals in 11 games and Yamal has ten. Fermin Lopez adds five, as many as Atletico’s top scorer. That’s 30 goals from three players, eight more than Atletico have managed as a team.
The results have swung hard either way. Barcelona won 5-2 at Real Betis, lost 4-2 to Paris Saint-Germain, lost the Clasico 2-1 at home and then put six past Alaves. Ten of their 11 league games have ended in wins, yet they’ve kept only four clean sheets.
The injury list explains some of that. Jules Kounde, Eric Garcia and Dani Olmo are all out, along with Xavi Espart and Roony Bardghji, and Andreas Christensen is doubtful. Frenkie has only just returned and has already been used at centre-back, which played against Alaves but wouldn’t be my first choice against Sorloth.
If Rodri misses out, Flick has suggested Marc Bernal would step in, and he praised the midfielder’s recent displays. Bernal replaced Rodri against Villa at half-time. Rodri has the fifth-most outfield minutes in the squad in La Liga, and he came back late after the World Cup and an injury.
Joan Garcia kept a clean sheet against Villa on Tuesday, but that’s been rare in La Liga. Four in 11 league games is the number that makes me wary of backing them outright away from home.
They’ve still dropped points in only one league game, and that came at home to Real Madrid. Their 5-2 win at Betis shows what they can do on the road, against the side now fourth in the table.
Probable lineup Atletico Madrid: Not announced at time of publication
Probable lineup Barcelona: Not announced at time of publication
Free La Liga Prediction: Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona
Our prediction: Over 2.5 goals
The moneyline has Barcelona at 1.69 and Atletico at 2.20, and I don’t want either at those prices with this many defenders in doubt on both sides. The goals market fits the evidence better: 37 goals in ten meetings under Flick, a line set at three, and two back lines that won’t be at full strength. I wouldn’t take it below 1.45.
Atletico’s recent league games argue against me. Three of their last three finished with two goals or fewer, and Simeone has made a season out of narrow wins. Those games came against Levante, Deportivo and Espanyol, though, and none of those sides has Raphinha and Yamal.
Atletico need to score to go top, and they conceded twice to Bayern on Tuesday without Romero. Barcelona haven’t stopped scoring in any game on the list above. I’d back this finishing with three goals or more.
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