Athletic Bilbao will be hoping that they can bounce back with a win on Saturday when they return to their San Mamés Barria ground to take on Sevilla following last weekend’s disappointing 1-0 defeat away from home at Osasuna.
It’s been a slow and under-par start to the new Spanish top flight campaign for hosts, Athletic Bilbao, as they’ve picked up just two wins out of their first six matches of this new season and they find themselves occupying a position in the bottom half of La Liga in 16th place.
Victories against Eibar 2-1 away from home and their recent 2-0 home win over Levante have been the only highlights so far for Athletic Bilbao who have struggled in these early stages of the new term, losing four of these six matches.
Defeats to Granada, Cadiz, Deportivo Alaves and Osasuna haven’t made for a promising start for the hosts who have also lost four of their last five matches at home, so the prospects of a home win here seem unlikely but 12 of Athletic Bilbao’s last 14 matches at home have produced under 2.5 goals.
Onto Sevilla, and the visitors will be keen to make up ground in La Liga as they’ve managed to play just five matches so far of this new Spanish top flight season which has produced mixed results to date, winning two, drawing one and losing two.
However, Sevilla’s welcome 1-0 home win over French Ligue 1 outfit, Rennes, in the Champions League on Wednesday night will be a timely boost for the visitors who had previously suffered a four-match sequence without a win in all competitions.
Despite picking up a solid point on the road away at Barcelona in a worthy 1-1 draw at the Nou Camp, Sevilla subsequently slipped to back-to-back defeats against Granada (away) and Eibar (at home) both by 1-0 margins.
A 0-0 draw away at Chelsea on Matchday 1 of the Champions League last week though proves that Sevilla are capable of getting something out of their travels and they stand a decent chance of picking up at least a point on Saturday at Athletic Bilbao.
Having lost just one of their last 10 matches away from home in La Liga this seems to prove the point but the expectation of goals for this upcoming clash are probably low as four of the previous five meetings between these two sides have resulted in under 2.5 goals.