Malaga travel to the Estadio Vicente Calderon on Saturday knowing that a win will see them overtake Ateltico Madrid in the league table.
The form of Los Boquerones in recent weeks has been excellent, a run of 5 successive league wins has seen them rise to sixth in the league table, 2 points behind current La Liga champions Atleti.
Diego Simeone’s men are in decent form to, they won 3 league games in a row before suffering a surprising 2-1 defeat away to Real Sociedad last time out.
Atleti will be without centre-half Miranda for this clash, after the Brazilian international suffered a grade 2 hamstring tear during international duty. Antione Greiezmann will be pushing for a recall to the starting XI, after scoring for France in the mid-week internationals.
Former Malaga right-back Jesus Gamez will be unavailable to face his former employers due to injury, while it looks like Roque Santa-Cruz will spearhead the attack for Javi Garcia’s side as leading scorer Nordin Amrabat is unavailable.
Saturday’s encounter will be a stern test for Los Boquerones and it should show us whether they have what it takes to qualify for European football once again.
Malaga have improved dramatically this campaign under Garcia, playing some fantastic football in the process, but Atletico have not lost any of their last six meetings against Los Boquerones and are unbeaten at home this term.
