CELTA VIGO VS LAS PALMAS PREVIEW & PREDICTION
The Monday evening game is this round for Celta de Vigo and Las Palmas, who compete against each other in the Balaidos. The home club hopes to keep its European dream alive, while the visitors fight against relegation.
Celta Vigo :
With 35 points from 26 rounds of play, Celta de Vigo does not get any further than tenth place in La Liga, but trainer Juan Carlos Unzue continues to raise the bar: ‘Qualifying for European football remains our goal. At the end of the season we will see if that will succeed. ‘ The deficit in seventh place is only five points, but there are quite a few hijackers on the coast.
The fact that Celta de Vigo can still dream of European football is mainly due to the attacking couple Maxi Gomez and Iago Aspas, who together accounted for 29 of the 43 Galician competition goals. The big problem lies in the rear, which with 38 counter-hits is as leaky as a basket. At the beginning of the season, Unzue first goalkeeper Sergio Alvarez quickly passed for the young Ruben Blanco, but this goalkeeper change did not solve the problem. Also last Tuesday Ruben did not keep his goal clean, as direct competitor Girona was too strong for the blue shirts with 1-0. Especially in the final phase, it is remarkably often wrong with the Galicians. Just looking at the last ten minutes of the game, Celta de Vigo gets an average score of 4.71 goal attempts from the opponent. Only Deportivo La Coruna is doing worse in that respect.
Las Palmas :
After the departure of star player Jonathan Viera to the Chinese Superleague a few weeks ago, I honestly thought that the role of Las Palmas in La Liga had been played out, but nothing could be further from the truth. With only one defeat in the last five games, the island club shows that it has been cut out of the right wood and will compete for the preservation until the last moment. Last Thursday evening, the yellow shirts with a 1-1 draw even stayed on against the big FC Barcelona, although they were lucky with a not given red card for goalkeeper Leandro Chichizola and an easy given penalty with which Jonathan Calleri his team just after rest again came alongside. “Mateu Lahoz is one of my favorite referees,” trainer Paco Jemez grinned afterwards.
Las Palmas is now on the same level with number seventeen Levante, but is still on the wrong degrading strike on the basis of a worse goal balance. However, if the team manages to follow this line, it makes a very good chance in my view to save it. The team has grown tremendously, especially from a defensive point of view. No less than 53 opponents in barely 26 rounds is nothing to write home about, but in the last five rounds, goalkeeper Chichizola held no less than three times the zero. Clubs such as Getafe and Leganes have already demonstrated this season that the road to life preservation starts with a solid defense. Scoring, however, Las Palmas is still struggling with only nineteen league goals. Celta de Vigo striker Iago Aspas alone scored only three times less than the entire Las Palmas selection. Also Monday night is the weather, because deep striker Calleri is suspended. Probably Erik Exposito will assume his position, although former Anderlecht and Standard Liege attacker Imoh Ezekiel is also an option.
PREDICTION: Celta Vigo to win @ 1.42
