Mourinho’s love of October means Real to avoid Barcelona loss

Real Madrid’s inferior start to the season means that a defeat at Barcelona could effectively rule them out of the La Liga title race after just seven games, but the good news is that Jose Mourinho simply loves October.

Madrid would slump 11 points behind their chief title rivals with a Nou Camp loss and Barcelona are 8/11 to take the three points in this fixture for the fourth time in five seasons.

However, Mourinho did engineer a 2-1 success last season and his general record as a manager in the month of October inspires confidence that this can be repeated.

Mourinho is unbeaten in his last 35 matches in the month, dating back to a 2004 Premier League defeat to Manchester City.

Discounting 2007 when he was between jobs, Mourinho went two seasons unbeaten in October at Chelsea, another two with Inter Milan and his opening pair at the Bernabeu.

The run began with a major win at Anfield with Chelsea beating Liverpool 4-1 and of these aforementioned 35 fixtures, Mourinho has witnessed 28 victories.

This season will test the trend with Real Madrid visiting not only Barcelona domestically, but also Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League.

It is 11/4 that Real Madrid win at the Nou Camp and Barcelona have hardly been dominant of late, needing goals in the last ten minutes to win their last three matches.

Alternatively, it is 13/5 that the eighth encounter in the last 14 months between the pair ends all square, which will retain Mourinho’s record but fail to allow Real Madrid to make ground in the early-season title race.

Robbie Savage recently stated that Real Madrid are an average team without Cristiano Ronaldo on song, so thankfully for the champions, he showed glimpses of his best with a hat-trick in the latest La Liga triumph over Deportivo.

Ronaldo has netted in his last five meetings with Barcelona and will be critical to their chances here.

All odds and markets correct as of publication

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