Alvaro Morata To Start Against Espanyol For Real Madrid
Speculation persists that Alvaro Morata wants to leave Real Madrid but Zinedine Zidane says he wants the striker to stay.
Alvaro Morata will start Real Madrid's match with Espanyol on Saturday as head coach Zinedine Zidane insists he is eager to keep him at the club.
The striker has been linked with a move away at the end of the season after reportedly growing frustrated with a lack of first-team opportunities since his return from Juventus last June.
Morata admitted this week that he missed the Juve dressing room and suggested he would have turned down the chance to return to the Santiago Bernabeu if there had not been a buy-back clause in his contract.
Zidane has confirmed that the Spain international will face Quique Sanchez Flores' side from the start and has assured him it will not be his only chance to impress across 90 minutes for the remainder of the season.
"I would not like it if Morata wanted to go at the end of the season," he told a news conference. "He's had fewer minutes, fewer than Karim, but he has had them. This is his home.
"He'll play from the start and it's not the last game in which he'll play from the start. But you can't stop that - there will always be players who have more minutes than others."