Faced with renewed speculation over James Rodriguez's future at the Estadio Santiao Bernabeu, Zinedine Zidane has reiterated his belief that the midfielder will remain in the Spanish capital after the January transfer window.
Rumours have been rife over a potential winter departure for the Colombian as he becomes increasingly frustrated over a perceived lack of game-time in the Spanish capital.
But faced with questions over James' future in the build-up to this weekend's game against Deportivo La Coruna, Zidane gave his strongest indication yet that the 25-year-old will still be a Real player until at least the end of the current campaign.
"James is not going to leave here for sure, I do not want him to leave," he said.
"To know if he will be in the eleven (for Depor), you have to wait."
Juventus have been linked with the ex-Monaco star who has been named in the squad to play Depor on Saturday, and may be handed a further chance to impress in the absence of the rested Luka Modric. Real Madrid's challenging fixture list means that rotation is just about essential in the coming weeks, with Zinedine Zidane revealing that Karim Benzema and others will be given a rest against Deportivo La Coruna this weekend.
In the midst of a busy calendar that has already seen games against Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund, and with the mid-December Club World Cup still to come, Los Blancos know that rotation is paramount if they are to continue to challenge on all fronts.
The star of Wednesday night's entertaining 2-2 draw against Borussia Dortmund, striker Benzema is one of those that will need to be carefully managed over the next few weeks in the absence of Gareth Bale.
And in his pre-match press conference, fellow countryman Zidane admitted that the Depor game provided the ideal opportunity to take the in-form forward out of the firing line.
"Yes, he is available to the team, but we are going to give him a rest," he told reporters. "We have a lot of games and tomorrow he will rest like other players.
"Depor are a good team. It is a very complicated match, difficult, and it is the last of the year and we will try hard in the match."
As Wednesday's draw against the Bundesliga outfit helped Zidane's men equal the club-record 34 game unbeaten run set by Leo Beenhakker's 1988/89 vintage, attention has now turned to etching their names into the history books against the Galician side.
Discussing the record, the head coach heaped praise on his players for their part in the stellar run.
"Many coaches have achieved great things here," he added. "The important thing is to continue with the work we are doing.
"It may be that the coach is important, but for me they are the players who have a lot of enthusiasm and a spectacular team dynamic and now all there is to do is to take care of the environment.
You have to take care of it because it can change very fast."
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