SATURDAY

Madrid face crisis management against Malaga

The Can’t Miss column appreciates that time is precious and those fun Saturday morning trips to Costco aren’t going to be done on their own.

So normally, it would steer away from Real Madrid facing Malaga, considering that it is a league clash that the visiting Andalusian sides have only won once in the past 30 attempts. But that was before the Spanish league leaders went into CRISIS mode – crisis by hysterical La Liga standards anyway – by losing two games in a row.

On Friday, the Real Madrid manager boasted that the inherent pressure of Madrid’s position only makes him stronger and in theory the visit of Malaga to the Santiago Bernabeu should be just the tonic to cure some football tummy pains. Malaga are still finding their feet after Juande Ramos removed his from the club by unexpectedly opting to leave. The side have lost their last three league games and even thought that re-recruiting the 36-year-old Martin Demichelis was a good idea.

But La Liga is a funny old beast this season, and a bus-parking scenario by Malaga could scupper Madrid’s out-of-sorts attack and see the Bernabeu club going four whole games without a win in all competitions. The word ‘crisis’ really would deserved to be capitalized then.

Hotshots Napoli take football show to Milan

If Serie A is the buttoned-up, conservative city in Footloose then Napoli is a mullet-sporting Kevin Bacon set to cause some mischief.

Maurizio Sarri has crafted Napoli into one of the hottest properties in European football, with the Italian outfit cracking in 21 goals over the past six league games and average of 3.5 strikes a game. But the team are also sturdy at the back and undefeated in nine. This does not bode well for Milan in San Siro with Vincenzo Montella needing a pick-me-up victory after a flat spell in Serie A with the side managing just the single win in four to fall away from the Champions League places.

Napoli have bigger fish to fry than mere Champions League places in wanting to stay in the chase at the top of the table and take any advantage of a Juventus wobble. And with Arkadiusz Milik back in training after tearing cruciate knee ligaments in October, life could soon be even brighter for one of Serie A’s shining stars.

MONDAY

Algeria fighting for AFON survival against Senegal

What could be Algeria’s loss may well be Leicester City’s gain with Riyad Mahrez and Islam Slimani returning to the English East Midfields to rejoin a relegation battle. Both players were expected to be on duty for their country for at least another week in Gabon. But both are flopping badly in an AFCON tournament that is stuffed to the rafters with underperforming big fishes such as Ivory Coast and the hosts themselves.

Algeria have just the single point from two matches in Group B. That leaves the North Africans needing to beat runaway leaders Senegal who have two wins from two, powered by Liverpool’s Mane. The optimists in the Algeria camp will say that Senegal will have the foot off the gas in Monday’s decider. Those with a shoe on the other foot will have Senegal wanting to get a possible rival out of the competition and avoid the risk of Algeria surviving and biting them on the bum later on.