Perhaps one of the most intriguing fixtures of this weekend’s La Liga action features the clash between 6th placed Villarreal and 8th placed Valencia as the two teams meet in Sunday’s showdown at the Estadio de la Cerámica.
Villarreal hold a slender two-point lead over their Sunday’s visitors but having put together a decent four-match unbeaten run in the Spanish top flight in recent times, winning three of their last four matches overall, Villarreal will be in confident mood ahead of this encounter.
Victories over Celta Vigo, Mallorca and Granada, all by 1-0 margins, along with a point picked up in a 2-2 draw with Sevilla have further enhanced Villarreal’s credentials for a top six finish and a European spot of some sort as either a Europa League qualifier or even a Champions League spot look possible.
Villarreal have also suffered just three defeats at home all season to date and have lost just one of their last five matches on home turf while also picking up wins against Osasuna, Levante and Mallorca in the process.
Valencia are enduring something of a sticky patch right now in the Spanish top flight as the visitors have managed to collect just one win out of their last five matches overall, and just two of their previous nine matches, as they attempt to kick-start their challenge for a top six finish with a win at Villarreal on Sunday.
There’s been two sides to Valencia so far in this La Liga campaign as they still remain unbeaten on home turf at their Estadio de Mestalla, winning nine and drawing seven, but results away from home have been far less convincing as they’ve registered just three wins on the road all season.
Valencia’s problems are plain to see when looking at their recent results on their travels as the visitors have slumped to five defeats out of their last six matches away from home with losses incurred at Mallorca 4-1, Getafe 3-0, Real Sociedad 3-0, Real Madrid 3-0 and a 1-0 loss at Eibar.
This means that Valencia have conceded a total of 15 goals from their last six away matches and have scored just 2 goals in reply.
In addition, Valencia have failed to score in four of these last six matches as well so this could well hand the initiative to Villarreal this Sunday.