Athletic Bilbao v Villarreal Betting Tips

Athletic Bilbao welcome Villarreal to San Mamés on Sunday night as two of La Liga’s better teams go head-to-head. It’s been a pretty good start to the new campaign for both of these clubs, and, as they sit 7th and 3rd respectively, both will have serious ambitions of pushing hard for the Champions League spots.

From a betting point of view, ‘Both Teams to Score’ is the way to play this one. Each side has plenty about them in an attacking sense and it’s fancied that both will find the net at least once here.

In front of their own fans, Bilbao have been in good-scoring form this season. They’ve scored a total of nine goals in their five home matches, scoring at least once in all but one of those. From a defensive perspective, while they haven’t done too badly, they’ve conceded six times at home, with the keeper picking the ball out of his net at least once in all of their five matches.

Villarreal, on the other hand, haven’t exactly scaled the heights when playing away from home. The Castellón club have won just once on the road this season. Although they’re not in great shape form wise on their travels, scoring goals hasn’t been the main problem. Having found the net on five occasions, they’ve scored in all but one of their five away matches. Defensively, it’s been a similar story. Having conceded four, they’ve let in at least one goal in three of their five away matches.

The ‘Both Teams to Score’ stats for these two this season match up quite nicely too. Both teams have found the net in four of Bilbao’s five at home, as well as in eight out of 11 overall. As for the visitors, both teams have scored in three of Villarreal’s five on the road, while they’ve both scored and conceded in six of their 11 overall.

The main strengths of both of these two teams lie primarily in the final third and their attacking qualities are likely to come to the fore here. On top of this, both teams have a variety of weapons in their respective armories and are thus capable of creating different goal-scoring chances in different ways. Villarreal have it in them to out-pass almost anyone on their day and create a lot of goals through quick interchanges in the middle of the park – often involving the likes of Manu Trigueros and Bruno Soriano. However, The Yellow Submarine, with the power and physical presence of players such as Bakambu, are also a real threat from set-pieces, scoring five of their 19 goals via this particular avenue. As for Bilbao, they too are a very capable side in possession and will no doubt cause Villarreal problems this way, but they are also a side capable of spreading the ball wide, taking advantage of the explosive Inaki Williams, in order to utilise their deadly front-man Aritz Aduriz – a player who’s already scored five goals this season.

These two are expected to play out an attractive game of football on Sunday night and it really would be a surprise if both teams haven’t found the net upon leaving the San Mamés pitch.

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