La Liga Picks Nov 1/2

Valencia v Racing Santander

Valencia sit proudly at the top of La Liga, still unbeaten this season and with 4 wins out of 4 at home, 12 goals for and 2 against, whilst hot shot David Villa has 9 goals in 8 games. Racing in contrast are 17th, have won once this season, (against Osasuna) and have just suffered the humiliation of being beaten at home by second division Murcia in the Copa de Rey midweek. Everything points to a home banker….. except the record book which shows us amazingly that Santander have won the last 4 matches between the two sides. That said, Valencia have been immense at home this season and having dropped points last weekend will be going all out to get the 3 this week surely Santander can’t make it 5 can they?

Valencia home win

Sporting Gijon v Numancia

I have to hold my hands up and admit I thought Gijon were going to be in for a long hard season and indeed I happily picked on them to lose week in week out and all was going to plan until the beginning of the month when they rather surprisingly won away at Mallorca. To be fair there had been some signs of improvement since the 7-1 thrashing at Real Madrid, indeed the week before the Mallorca game Gijon had been rather unlucky to lose 1-0 to Villareal. Gijon have now picked up 9 points from the last 3 games, Mallorca, then Osasuna and most impressively of all winning last weekend away against Deportivo La Coruna, 0-3. Numancia have looked reasonably solid since joining La Liga, (coming up with Gijon last season) most games have been pretty tight, losing to Real Madrid 4-3 and Barcelona 1-0 for example and then last weekend picking up all 3 points to win 2-1 against Racing Santander. Interestingly these two teams met in the week in the Copa de Rey with Gijon stealing a 1-0 win away at Numancia. I think this is going to be a close game again but feel the confident youngsters from Gijon, backed by a home crowd will just have enough to keep there winning streak going.

Gijon to win