Real Madrid will have one eye on their Champions League clash with Liverpool, but they simply cannot afford any more slip-ups in the league to stand a chance of catching Barcelona, and we are expecting Ancelotti's side to secure all three points this weekend courtesy of a 2-0 scoreline.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Real Madrid win with a probability of 75.79%. A draw had a probability of 15.7% and a win for Espanyol had a probability of 8.52%.
The most likely scoreline for a Real Madrid win was 2-0 with a probability of 13.34%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (11.11%) and 3-0 (10.68%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (7.46%), while for a Espanyol win it was 0-1 (3.11%). The actual scoreline of 3-1 was predicted with a 7.2% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Real Madrid would win this match.
-0.18) 
0.05) 
