ESPANYOL VS ALAVES PREVIEW & PREDICTION
Upcoming Sunday, Espanyol and Alaves face each other. Partly because of a chronic lack of scoring ability, both teams have not yet managed to make the jump to the left row of La Liga. It could therefore be a pleasant afternoon in the Cornella …
Espanyol:
‘The season is not over yet for us,’ said Javi Lopez defender this week. Still, it seems that Espanyol is taking the rest of the season for bacon and beans, because with 35 points from 29 rounds and a provisional 14th place, European football is long and wide out of sight. And that while the rich Chinese chairman Chen Yansheng dreamed aloud earlier this season about the Champions League hymn in the Cornella.
If Espanyol ever wants to make those towering ambitions true, it will first have to thoroughly renovate its selection. Actually, only attacker Gerard Moreno can look back on a successful season. The striker managed to get the net spinning twelve times this season and is responsible for no less than 46.2 percent of the total goal production of Los Pericos. This statistic immediately indicates where the blue wads wriggle the shoe, because outside of Gerard Moreno trainer Quique Sanchez Flores does not have any player with scoring ability. Also the defense sometimes drops a bit, so it became painfully clear in the 3-0 defeat of two weeks ago visiting Real Betis. Of course, Espanyol will try to finish as high as possible, but with this player material there is no more than a place somewhere in the top right row. You really have to have a bad marriage to take a season ticket at Espanyol.
Alaves:
In contrast to the sleepy Espanyol, Alaves knows a stormy season. The Basques were stiff at the bottom for some time, but since the appointment of trainer Abelardo Fernandez they have managed to find their way up again. Meanwhile, the team from Vitoria is in a safe sixteenth place, with ten points ahead of the relegation zone. El Glorioso is therefore well on the way to a new subscription to La Liga, although Abelardo is still not convinced: “We still have to win three more games to really breathe.” The coach has already indicated that he would like to stay as soon as his or her life is definitively secured, something that the board will undoubtedly sound like music to the ears.
Yet the magic of Abelardo seems to have worked out a little bit over the last few weeks, because the last three league matches of Alaves were lost one by one. The 3-1 defeat in and against Valencia from two weeks ago hurt. “This was perhaps our worst game of the season,” said Abelardo. ‘I expect a reaction from my team against Espanyol.’ The coach can at least count on Fernando Pacheco, the goalkeeper with the most savages of La Liga. However, the big problem lies in the completion. John Guidetti, Bojan Krkic and Munir El Haddadi are all by name and fame attackers, but together this season they do not get any further than just seven league goals.
PREDICTION: Espanyol to win @ 2.00
