Football Results

Both teams play better recently and we need to add that last year they played a goalless draw at this very stadium, while in Bilbao the home team won by 2-0

Espanyol

Now, Espanyol fans expect that their team could win the guests from Basque country, especially as they triumphed over second-placed Atletico Madrid 1-0 in their last home match in La Liga. After that Espanyol won Malaga away by the same result, and right now this team has even eight points more than teams in the drop zone so they can play match with always uncomfortable Basques being under not so strong pressure.

How much those two consecutive wins in the league meant for them it can be best seen through last week match in the Copa del Rey when they defeated Levante 2-0 in the 2nd leg of round of 16 and passed further with aggregated 2-1 in next round of the competition. In this La Liga match they will miss a lot suspended stopper David Lopez and midfielder Fuego, while not fully recovered stopper Duarte is questionable.

Probable lineups Espanyol: Pau Lopez – Javi Lopez, Naldo, Hermoso, Caricol – Darder, Sanchez, Granero – Baptistao, Moreno, Garcia

Athletic Bilbao

We have said that the guests from Bilbao are also in very good mood ahead of match with Espanyol, given they won three and drew one out of last four league matches. Athletic won only with Real Socieded at home, while it firstly won Levante away 2-1, and then it defeated by 2-0 Betis away and Alaves at home, which propelled them to the upper half of table.

Coach Ziganda is mostly pleased with fact that his team didn’t received a single goal in three matches in a row, and it is quite realistic to expect to set the defence in a similar way now against Espanyol. True, Lekue should get chance to play instead of injured defender Marcos from the first minute, while the rest of starting line-up should stay the same, especially as out of action are still injured goalkeeper Arrizabalaga, defender Balenziaga and winger Muniain.

Probable lineups Athletic Bilbao: Herrerin – Lekue, Etxeita, Laporte, Saborit – Rico, Iturraspe – Susaeta, Garcia, Williams – Aduriz

Verdict:

We have said in our analysis that this will be duel between teams which are in very good shape, mostly thanks to great performance of their defences, so it is quite logical why we don’t expect to see too many goals in their head-to-head.

Pick: under 2.5 goals 1.59 - 59/100 @1XBet