Next Saturday, 5th of December 2014, the current La Liga champions, Atlético Madrid, will travel to Comunidad Valenciana to measure forces with Elche at Estadio Manuel Martinez Valero for round 14 of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match of vital importance for the visitors, who don’t want to keep close to Real Madrid and Barcelona at the top of the table, and for the home side, who are currently second from bottom and suffered a heavy defeat last Friday at Anoeta.

Atlético Madrid seem to be back to their good old days as the new arrivals appear to be already fully adapted to Simeone’s ideas. Last Sunday, Los Colchoneros granted another solid win against Deportivo La Coruña at Vicente Calderón, thanks to goals from the Spanish wonderboy Saúl Niguez and the Turkish flamboyant midfielder Arda Turan. The match, nevertheless, will be remembered for the death of a Deportivo supporter, who had to be rescued a freezing Manzanares river in the outskirts of the Stadium after a clash between rival supporters groups a couple of hours before the game.

Apart from this sad and tragic episode, Atlético were far superior during the entire match and, although their performance was far from brilliant, they secured the important three points at the end of the clash. Simeone remains faithful to his 4-4-1-1 style with whether Griezmann or Turan lurking behind the Croatian powerful forward, Mario Mandzukic, up in the front and with Saul Niguez in the place of Gabi, who was suspended, in the centre of the pitch.

Their next match at Elche next Saturday will certainly be very complicated as Los Franjiverdes tend to be twice as dangerous when playing at home.

As for Elche, the team from the Comunidad Valenciana suffered a heavy defeat at the Basque Country last Friday and such poor result might have a negative effect on the team for matches to come. The boys of Fran Escribá were smashed by David Moyes’ Real Sociedad for the Scottish manager’s debut at Anoeta and suffered their seventh defeat in 13 league matches so far this season. Elche have only managed to win one of their last ten matches and are now drowning, along with Deportivo and Cordoba, below the relegation line. A match against the current La Liga champions is probably not the best way to invert this negative streak and Fran Escribá will need to put up something very special to motivate his players for such a complicated clash.

Elche

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LDDWL

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Possible Line-ups

Elche (4-2-3-1) - Tyton - Suárez - Pelegrín - Lombán - Cisma - Mosquera - Gonzalez - Fajr - Garry Rodrigues - Herrera - Jonathas

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Ansaldi - Godín - Gimenez - Tiago - Gabi - Griezmann -Koke - Turan - Mandzukic

Prediction

Elche 1 Atlético Madrid 2