Liga stays home for January sales

After a galling midweek King's Cup defeat at the hands of arch-rival Barcelona, which led to even the normally level-headed Iker Casillas blowing a gasket or two, Real Madrid returns this weekend to the business of maintaining its five-point lead over Pep Guardiola's side in La Liga. "Falling down is permitted, but getting back up again is obligatory," said the Spain captain when the dust had settled on another round of clásico histrionics. "We have to forget the cup. Our challenge now is another: to fight to keep our advantage in the league going and, in three weeks, play the last 16 of the Champions League."

On paper, the former should be little trouble. This week's visitor to the Bernabéu, where Real has lost only twice all season, to its bête noire, is Zaragoza, which has not tasted victory in 12 matches and is six points adrift of Sporting Gijón at the very foot of the Liga table. However, the last side to leave Real's stronghold with three points other than Barça was none other than Zaragoza, in week 34 of last season, when it was again embroiled in a desperate battle for Primera status.

"It has not entered our heads that we are going there to lose," said Zaragoza's Paulo da Silva. "We need the points whoever the opponent. All our matches now will be like finals."

"Our main problem is that we are not creating chances," added Portugal striker Hélder Póstiga helpfully.

Zaragoza has been busier than most in the transfer market signing four players, including former Málaga captain Apoño on loan, for no outlay whatsoever. It is the trend in the new financial panorama; only Sevilla has dusted off its check book so far to actually spend some money on players - making José Antonio Reyes the unlikely most-expensive signing of the window in the process - and even then it recouped some by charging Juventus a tidy 1.5 million euros for the loan of Martín Cáceres.

Zaragoza coach Manolo Jiménez still wants to bring in a full-back, a central defender, a midfielder and a forward. He will need to repeat the trick of persuading players of the caliber of Apoño and Carlos Aranda, who has signed from Levante, to join to prevent the ship from sinking to Segunda.

Elsewhere, Barcelona travels to Villarreal to try to keep Real within its sights but Guardiola's side is significantly weakened by injuries while the Yellow Submarine was buoyed somewhat by a 3-0 win against Sporting last weekend after a woeful start to the season. Andrés Iniesta and Alexis Sánchez joined Barça's casualty list during the bruising encounter with Real but Barcelona B coach Eusebio Sacristán said his charges, this season's revelation Isaac Cuenca among them, are ready to fill the gaps.

Villarreal has plenty of injury woes of its own, most notably the loss of Giuseppe Rossi for the season. "We have to bang our fist on the table and show that we can get out of this," said Villarreal captain Gonzalo Rodríguez. "This season has been difficult so far. Nothing has gone right and we need a special night so that we can start believing in ourselves again."

Sevilla takes on Málaga, whose summer spending spree promised a shake-up of the Liga status quo. However, things have not quite gone according to plan at La Rosaleda with Málaga failing to make much of an impact on the top six.

Málaga, although 10th, is only three points behind fifth-placed Espanyol in a congested mid-table where Atlético, Sevilla and Athletic are also vying to muscle in on the European places. It is instructive that Málaga's owners, who promised January reinforcements if Manuel Pellegrini's side was pushing for the top six, have kept their Montblancs firmly in their pockets. A decent result against a solid Sevilla side would go some way to restoring a bit of faith.