La Liga betting preview: Celta Vigo- Villarreal
Oct 05, 2014
Celta Vigo are unbeaten (3-3-0) and have been playing at a high level for the best part of a year, averaging over 1.63 points per game over their last 30 La Liga starts, which equates to 62 points over a full season, enough for sixth spot in each of the last two seasons and a Champions League spot in the two campiagns prior to that. They were scoring freely in pre season and against decent opposition and have carried that trait into the new season. The work that Luis Enrique begun, as been seemlessly carried on by Eduardo Berizzo and he is not afraid to rotate and use his squad, he made five changes from the team which won the Galacian derby with Deportivo for the trip to Eibar last week, where they took the spoils with a late goal and that depth will serve them well. However, he explained that the changes were not about simply resting players, saying :The team must be able to absorb changes and keep moving forward. The rotation of players shouldn’t be purely for allowing people game time, it should also enhance the team simultaneously.”
They are without Augusto Fernandez today, but he would have been very likely to have started and are otherwise at full strength.
Villarreal had a very pleasing first season back in the top flight posting a 6th place finish, that was not totally unexpected, at least by us and on opening day last season I wrote .....
Two of the newcomers are paired together on Matchday 1. Of the promoted clubs Villarreal look by far the strongest, they have spent a little money to get competitive, are still a big name club around Europe and the chances are, that we will come to view their one year hiatus in the second tier as little more than a blip. Whether they can quite return to former glory, they finished 8-3-7-5-2-5-7-4 in their eight seasons before relegation, is open to debate, but I expect a mid season finish this time round at the very least. They finished last season strongly, 9th in late January and seven points off an automatic promotion spot, they went 13-6-1 over their last 20 starts and pipped Almeria to second place. Spanish international defensive midfielder Bruno Soriano (36-4-4 last season) has been at the club man and boy and through the Champions League years and remained loyal, likewise offensive midfielder Cani (37-3-5) amongst others. That loyalty ( on both sides) was repaid and now Villa look well equipped for life back in the top flight. They have added some real quality with the signings of another defensive midfielder in Tomás Pina ( 36-0-1 Mallorca in La Liga), he and Soriano will make a fairly formidible pairing, plus gifted Mexican international strikers Giovani dos Santos (29-6-6 Mallorca) and Javier Aquino (joined late in the last transfer window). They did lose Javi Venta to Brentford ( !), but signed central defender Gabriel Paulista from Vitoria of Brazil (14-1-0) this week and they have spent some 17-20m euros on transfer fees alone, when others have kept very tight hold of their purse strings. To put that into perspective, whilst adding players, the other two promoted clubs only actually spent circa 50k on transfer fees between them !
Ikechukwu Uche (32-14-4) Jonathan Pereira (20-7-4) Jérémy Perbet (18-11-3) all remain and with the Mexican duo, they look to have as much offensive potential as any outside the really big players in Primera, if they could hit the ground running, a really strong season is in the offering and even a top six finish not impossible. Pereira , Perbet, Aquino only signed in January and made a huge and instant impact . They are spending money on the team in other ways too, chartering a plane to fly to Almeria at lunch time, so that they can prepare in Valencia this morning and staying in the city overnight. The visitors are pretty much at full strength and look good with the level ball option.
They again strengthened in the summer and here we have two teams both looking to break into the top 4, or at least challenge. Long term I feel the visitors have the greater potential, but right now Celta are playing with a lot of confidence and the visitors look short defensively without Rukavina, Musacchio, Jokic and Jume Costa. That means just five defenders have made the trip, one has not played this season, another is just 17yo, they also played on Thursday in the Europa League and all 11 starters there, including the four likley defenders today started and that is far from ideal. Meanwhile, Vigo played on Friday of last week, so have had a full nine days to rest and prepare for this. H2h wise, Celta have not lost to Villarreal at home in the living memory of most players and took took four points off them last season.
1.5 units Celta Vigo -0.25 ball 2.21 asina line/Sportmarket.
Villarreal: Asenjo , Juan Carlos, Mario, Adrián Marín, Gabriel, Dorado , Víctor Ruiz, Trigueros, Bruno, Jonathan dos Santos, Cheryshev, Espinosa, Moi Gómez , Cani, Uche, Giovani, Gerard , Vietto.
Good Luck.
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