La Liga: Weekend Betting Preview

Betfair’s Tobias Gourlay has decided not to throw his formbook out of the window ahead of the Barcelona derby. Not least because it also contains some useful information about Valencia’s match with Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid’s clash with Villarreal.

Barcelona’s last La Liga match of 2009 is at home to Espanyol, the city rivals who upset them 2-1 in this fixture in February. Barca had Seydou Keita sent off in the first half of that game and it is difficult to see a similar result on Saturday evening. Recent victories over Internazionale, Real Madrid, Xerez, Deportivo La Coruna and Dynamo Kiev have helped Pep Guardiola sweep aside doubts that his 2009/10 team might not be up to the standard of its treble-winning predecessor.

Ivan De La Pena, scorer of both of Espanyol’s goals earlier in the year, hasn’t started a game all season and hasn’t been seen at all for over a month. Home and away, Los Periquitos have lost their last four league games by a combined score of 11-0.

Guardiola’s formidable home record means the 1.21 favourites can’t be opposed, even if Leo Messi doesn’t recover in time from a midweek knock. 1.64 is available for Barca to be ahead at half-time and full-time, which has been the case in 16/25 home league games under Guardiola. Seventeen of the games were won by two goals or more and 11 by at least three goals. Barcelona -2.0 are on offer at 1.91 in the Asian Handicap market. If pressed to do something for this match, that’s where this column’s money would be.

Real Madrid kick off immediately after Barca finish and it will be hard for them to emulate their Catalan rivals in Valencia. Los Merengues lost 3-0 at the Mestalla in May, have already lost on the road to Sevilla and Barcelona this season, and must do without Kaka, who might not be around until the New Year, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who was sent off against Almeria last weekend.

Real struggled without Ronaldo earlier in the season, winning only 5/10 in all competitions, and have not had much time since to work out what to do without him. Valencia have lost David Silva to injury, but have won five of their last six in La Liga and lost only once all season. Coach Unai Emery is unbeaten in six games at home to top-six teams, winning three of them.

Pablo Hernandez is perhaps the biggest revelation of the season in Spain so far and his interplay with David Villa and Juan Mata is crucial to the success of Emery’s attacking system. Pablo scored his first goal for Spain against Austria last month and, although Santi Cazorla made a spectacular return to Villarreal’s first team at the weekend and Sevilla’s Jesus Navas seems to have beaten his travel-sickness, the Valencia right-winger has earned an opportunity to play in South Africa next summer.

In the last five seasons, Real are W6-D8-L10 on the road to teams in the top six, lending appeal to the straight Valencia win at 2.56 and Valencia off scratch at 1.87 in the Asian Handicap market.

Our third match involves Spain’s two biggest underachievers of the season so far. Atletico Madrid go into the game in 13th, their highest position so far. Villarreal haven’t been higher than 11th since they drew their very first game of the season.

Atletico have won their last two league games, albeit against Espanyol and Xerez, who are probably the two worst teams in the league at the moment. But the leeway given by back-to-back easy fixtures has allowed new boss Quique Sanchez Flores to try a new formation. He’s dropped one of his two holding midfielders – very brave, given his team’s miserable defensive record – and moved to a diamond formation.

At the top of the diamond is Jurado, a talented player who hadn’t been properly fitted into the team since his return from last season’s successful loan spell at Real Mallorca. Now he is where he wants to be, he can supply the bullets for Diego Forlan and Kun Aguero to shoot down a Villarreal team that has lost its last five away games.

Recommended Bets

• Back Barcelona -2.0 at 1.91 on the Asian Handicap to beat Espanyol
• Back Valencia at 2.56 to beat Real Madrid
• Back Atletico Madrid at 2.14 to beat Villarreal

Reproduced with permission from betting.Betfair.com. © The Sporting Exchange Limited

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