Football – Spain – La Liga
Sunday 25th January 2015 – Kickoff: 1800hrs
Espanyol bounced back from recent back-to-back defeats in La liga last weekend when they beat Celta Vigo 1-0 at home, and no doubt they’ll be looking for more of the same tonight when they take on third from bottom club Almeria at their Power8 Stadium.
Espanyol had suffered a double set-back with losses to Eibar and Real Madrid who are both situated in the top half of the division, but they’ll be looking to build on last week’s home win with another strong performance on home turf here, and with a pretty good home record of 5-3-2 14/9 going into this clash, they’ll fancy their chances.
The hosts have lost just once in their last nine at home, and they’ve also kept four clean sheets to date, along with winning three of their last four on home soil.
Almeria have won just twice in their last thirteen matches overall in La Liga although both of these were recent away wins at Celta Vigo and Malaga, winning 1-0 and 2-1 respectively. But these results have been the exception rather than the rule as they’ve really struggled against the better teams having won just once in the four matches played against such opposition.
Defeats at Getafe, Villarreal, Levante, Eibar and Valencia should mean that they’re up against it here this evening when they travel to Espanyol, particularly with just four clean sheets from their last twenty away matches in the Spanish top flight.
I’m expecting this last statistic to come into play here tonight as the hosts have been in pretty good form, and they should have too much for Almeria in what could be perhaps a 1-0 win for the home side.
Pick: Espanyol straight win @ 1.77 Ladbrokes
