By Tim Stannard

1) Madrid face mad month without Marcelo

Life continues to be a box of chocolates for Coach Zizou, but unfortunately the Frenchman has moved from the toffee fingers to the icky cheery syrup types that everyone else leaves behind.

Just over a week ago, the Madrid manager was king of the world being hugged tightly from behind by a footballing Leonardo DiCaprio, in possession of a 40-match unbeaten streak. But then reality bit hard with Madrid being booed and whistled by the club’s own hard-to-please supporters in the Santiago Bernabeu despite beating Malaga to stay at the top of the La Liga standings.

On Monday, there was more bad news for Zinedine Zidane with injury reports that puts Luka Modric out for around 10 days with an abductor whack, and more seriously, Marcelo is on the sidelines for a month with a hamstring tear. The pair join James Rodriguez, Gareth Bale, Dani Carvajal, Pepe and Fabio Coentrao on the injury list. Cristiano Ronaldo’s form appears on the list Real Madrid absentees, too.

Tune into the Locker Room from 7:30PM ET / 4:30PM PT to see if our experts think that Real Madrid can ride the latest injury wave. And remember that Madrid’s next clash is coming up on Wednesday with a return leg in the Copa del Rey quarterfinals against Celta Vigo with Madrid 2-1 down.

2) Busquets gets off lightly from horror tackle

There are a few sighs of relief at Barcelona with tests on Sergi Busquets showing that the midfielder will only be missing the next two weeks, instead of a lot longer which were the initial fears after a horror tackle from Argentine midfielder, Gonzalo Escalante. The women and men in white coats at the Camp Nou confirm an ankle sprain rather than more permanent damage.

3) New Zlatan makes Swedish switch to Borussia Dortmund

With a week or so to go until the end of the winter transfer window, a few clubs are starting to hit the panic button and sneak in some signings. One of those is Milan, freshly beaten at home by Napoli on Saturday, who have finally snared Everton’s Gerard Deulofeu on loan and are expected to announce the signing on Monday after the Spanish forward arrived in Milan on Sunday for a medical.

And Borussia Dortmund have bagged a young striker, that an awful lot of clubs have been linked with including Real Madrid. Alexander Isak - ‘The New Zlatan’ - is just 17-years-old and joins the Bundesliga outfit from Swedish team, AIK, for around $10m and recently become the youngest ever goal-scorer for Sweden.

Tune into the XTRA at 7PM ET / 4PM PT for the latest transfer news, gossip and completely made-up stuff.

4) Algeria face early AFCON exit

AFCON 2017 is very much in the middle of its business end, so to speak. Burkina Faso and Cameroon have already booked their spots in the quarterfinals. Two more teams will go through from Group B on Monday and there is a fair to middling chance that one of them one won’t be Algeria, one of the pre-tournament favorites.

In order to stay in Gabon, Algeria have to beat the already qualified group leaders, Senegal, and hope that Tunisia drop points against Zimbabwe, who can still pass through despite being bottom-of-the-table. Tune in to beIN SPORTS for full coverage of Senegal v Algeria and Zimbabwe against Tunisia live at 1:50PM ET / 10:50AM PT. The XTRA will have a look at all the goals and best action from the day in Gabon.

5) Nadal powers through to Australia Open quarters

It’s tennis time! Overnight on Sunday at the Australian Open, Rafa Nadal reached his 30th grand slam quarterfinal by defeating Gael Monfils. Canada’s Milos Raonic progressed to the final eight and both will be hoping to take advantage of a draw that is now without both Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.

Serena Williams was more than a little wobbly in her tie against Barbora Strycova but definitely drew the positives from the performance. "I feel like it was really good for me to win on probably not my best day, which is always good," declared the world number two who now faces Britain’s Johanna Konta.

WHAT IS SPORTS BURST?

The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. SB is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.