The Catalans were awful in their last league game against Real Betis (0:3). But eight Espanyol players suffered from gastroenteritis and missed the training, that’s why the score was 0:2 by the 20th minute. Now they had enough time to prepare for the upcoming game. They must be in the better form.
There are three reasons why Rayo Vallecano shouldn’t perform well. Firstly, they had a game against Barcelona just three days ago, and Barcelona are a tough team to play with. Secondly, they had two players sent-off in that match, so they expended a lot of energy. And finally, Paco Jemez doesn’t have enough players to rotate.
Rayo have seven players injured and Miku with Jozabed among them. They are also missing Razvan Rat on the left side, giving the opponents a lot of free space there.
So the Madrid team are tired, so we can back Espanyol to win. They have enough motivation: relegation zone can be seen just two points below them. So Espanyol need to win. They have all players available. Marco Asensio, Felipe Caicedo and Gerard Moreno should crush Rayo’s weak defence.