The China Mail - Mbappe out for Real Madrid cup game as Ancelotti backs ref complaints

French striker Mbappe was hacked down by Espanyol's Carlos Romero during their 1-0 La Liga defeat on Saturday with the defender avoiding a red card and going on to score the winning goal against the league leaders.

On Monday Madrid sent a letter to the Spanish football federation blasting refereeing in Spain as "rigged" and "completely discredited".

"Mbappe started to train today, yesterday we gave him an extra day of recovery," Ancelotti told reporters.

"He has a bruised calf, he trained normally but tomorrow he will not be available for the game."

Ancelotti said the decision not to send off Romero was "inexplicable" after the game and reiterated his point ahead of the Leganes clash.

"We're talking about something that's inexplicable, we're talking above all about the welfare of the players, and what Madrid's message asks for is an explanation, and that seems right to me," said Ancelotti.

"We want an explanation about what happened and why nothing was done to look after the welfare of the player."

Ancelotti also said Jude Bellingham was set to miss the Leganes game with a knock, along with David Alaba, who was ruled out with a thigh injury earlier Tuesday.

The Austrian defender will miss between two and three weeks, according to Ancelotti.

Alaba, only recently back from a year-long knee injury absence, will be unavailable for the derby clash in La Liga against Atletico Madrid on Saturday and is unlikely to feature in the Champions League play-off tie against Manchester City.

Los Blancos travel to face the Premier League side in Manchester on February 11 and then host the second leg on February 19.

Antonio Rudiger is a major doubt for the game with another thigh injury, leaving youngster Raul Asencio and midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni as Madrid's likely centre-back pairing.

Eder Militao and Dani Carvajal are long-term injury absentees for Madrid in defence.

"Unfortunately in the last two days we've lost two important players, that's something we did not contemplate... Alaba was ready to play tomorrow, as he had good feelings," said Ancelotti.

"It's a moment of emergency which we have to bear out, because these are small problems, Alaba will be out for 15-20 days, Rudiger the same, so we have to deal with it with (the players) we have."

B.Carter--ThChM