Barcelona v Levante Betting Preview – La Liga 7th January 3.15pm
The Spanish top flight gets back to business after its winter break and Barcelona gets a good looking home fixture to ease themselves back with. The Catalans are unbeaten for the season and just before the winter break landed a big win out at Real Madrid. That leaves them with a three-match winning streak in the top flight and with Levante having some struggles this season near the foot of the table, the visitors are heavy underdogs.
Barcelona v Levante Betting Tips
What a strong season Barcelona have put together in La Liga. They have won their last three league games and have stayed undefeated all term. They smashed Real Madrid 3-0 before the winter break away from home to further add to their supremacy this season. Barcelona have posted a W7 D1 record from their eight league home games and they have averaged 3.25 goals per game at home as well. They have only conceded the four goals too so Barcelona to win to nil at William Hill is going to have plenty of appeal for the match up. The Catalans have not been trailing at the break in any home fixture this season and in the correct score market, a Barcelona 3-0 result is the shortest-priced option in the market at a 13/2 quote. They have kept a clean sheet in 62% of their home games and should be comfortable enough here.
In the 2015/16 season when the two were last together Barcelona won both league fixtures, extending their winning streak to six in a row against Levante. Barcelona scored at least four goals in five of those six games. So over 3.5 goals at William Hill looks the right way to go for this one. The winter break will see the likes of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez come back fresh and they get Ousmane Dembele back after his long injury as well. Lionel Messi is the 6/4 first goalscorer favourite for the game with Luis Suarez at 9/4. Barcelona just dominates the head to head against Levante which you would expect as they are 17-1 up against them with four drawn matches. Levante’s only success against Barca came in their first ever match against them which was a Copa del Rey fixture back in 2004.
Levante are struggling near the wrong end of the table and it’s not because they have lost a lot of games, they just haven’t been able to turn situations into wins. They have posted a W3 D9 L5 record in the Spanish top flight this season and go into this with three 0-0 draws in their last four games played. Their lack of scoring clearly isn’t helping them and they have only scored five times on their travels, so it’s unlikely that they are going to get the Barcelona defence rattled in this one. That having been said Levante have been defensively sound and have conceded just seven goals in seven away games and they played out a 1-1 draw at Real Madrid earlier in the season and a recent draw at Sevilla. They have failed to score in three of their last four league matches against Barcelona and it’s unlikely that this is going to end up as a 0-0 draw.
Barcelona v Levante Betting Odds
Barcelona 1/20, Draw 14/1, Levante 33/1
Barcelona v Levante Predictions
Barcelona should be comfortable enough in getting three points on the board. Levante haven’t been a terrible side defensively, but they are lacking the punch going forward to compete in this one. A Barcelona 3-0 doesn’t look a bad option to roll with or at least just backing them to win to nil.
