Bale starts with Ronaldo vs Atletico

Zinedine Zidane believes Gareth Bale will still be at Real Madrid next season, despite increasing suggestions he will return to the Premier League.

He was sent off in Atletico’s LaLiga opener against Girona before enduring an eight-game run without a goal, his longest dry spell for the club since arriving from Real Sociedad in July 2014.

Atletico reacted well, however, and within four minutes Griezmann finished smartly after the home defence had been too easily cut open.

“We have been training hard, preparing for this weekend’s game”.

Real went into the clash four points adrift of their city rivals in second and could have closed the gap to one point with a victory. We have many games, that’s it.

“Atletico deserve to be where they are in the standings and all we can do is make up some ground on them”.

Real Madrid welcome Juventus to the Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday for the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final.

“I’m happy with the match and how we performed because we clearly deserved more”.

Eyebrows were raised when Ronaldo was withdrawn with 27 minutes remaining, but Zidane insisted the 33-year-old needed a rest.

In the 88th-minute, and with Los Blancos searching for a victor, Diego Godin diverted the initial attack before Lucas Hernandez smashed the ball high and out of Atletico’s penalty area. Moreover, with Griezmann in this form they will fancy adding the Europa League and that would mean it has not be a bad season at all. But the hosts brought out a great performance by Atletico goalkeeper Jan Oblak, who made one of his best saves on a last-minute free kick taken by Sergio Ramos.

Atletico striker Diego Costa caused most of the problems for Real Madrid early on.

Marcelo was then the latest player to have his head in his hands, as he struck the crossbar in the closing stages of the first half with a curling strike on his weaker right foot.