{"id":1419,"date":"2026-02-09T13:12:03","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/?p=1419"},"modified":"2026-02-09T13:12:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:12:05","slug":"real-madrid-keep-pressure-on-barcelona-with-tight-win-at-valencia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/09\/real-madrid-keep-pressure-on-barcelona-with-tight-win-at-valencia\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid keep pressure on Barcelona with tight win at Valencia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" src=\"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7.png 1000w, https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/mktynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-7-768x512.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Alvaro Carreras and Kylian Mbappe&#8217;s goals earned Real Madrid a battling 2-0 win at Valencia on Sunday to close the gap to La Liga leaders Barcelona to one point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the Spanish champions had beaten Mallorca on Saturday, Alvaro Arbeloa&#8217;s side eked out a tight victory at Mestalla to keep the pressure on their arch-rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Missing suspended forward Vinicius Junior and injured midfielder Jude Bellingham, Los Blancos lacked sparkle but did just enough to claim three points on Spain&#8217;s east coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>England international Trent Alexander-Arnold made his return after injury as a substitute in the second half of Madrid&#8217;s victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arbeloa&#8217;s side had the better chances in the first half but failed to create danger on a consistent basis in a gritty encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arda Guler&#8217;s shot deflected narrowly wide, while Valencia stopper Stole Dimitrievski saved well with his legs from Mbappe&#8217;s fierce drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Madrid right-back David Jimenez, from the club&#8217;s youth academy, came closest to scoring after French superstar Mbappe teed him up, but the Macedonian goalkeeper denied him, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Midway through the second half, Carreras conjured a goal out of nothing to give Madrid the lead. Drifting inside from the left of the box, the defender used his weaker right foot to stroke the ball inside Dimitrievski&#8217;s near post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Valencia might have levelled, but Lucas Beltran&#8217;s effort on the stretch beat Thibaut Courtois and clipped the post. Arbeloa brought on Alexander-Arnold for his first appearance since early December following a thigh injury as Madrid looked to close out the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They eventually secured the three points in stoppage time as Brahim Diaz teed up La Liga&#8217;s top scorer Mbappe, who finished calmly for his 23rd goal in the competition this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Valencia&#8217;s fans, some of whom had waved white handkerchieves during the match in protest at the club&#8217;s situation, headed for the exits with Los Che 17th, one point above the drop zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alvaro Carreras and Kylian Mbappe&#8217;s goals earned Real Madrid a battling 2-0 win at Valencia on Sunday to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1421,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions\/1421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mktynews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}