The ever-impressive Eibar continue their quest for European football on Monday night with a trip to Pamplona where they’ll take on the team who’re propping up the rest of the division. Given Osasuna’s current predicament, this is an excellent opportunity for the visitors to cement their position in 8th place.
Even though there is still 11 games left to play (after this fixture), Osasuna’s future has been pretty much been decided already, for next season at least. La Liga’s bottom club have been unable to go with the pace in Spain’s top division and are expected to struggle against an Eibar side who’ve gone from strength to strength in recent times.
Unsurprisingly, getting behind the visitors is the way to go here. There are two angles of attack that catch the eye and these are: ‘Eibar to Score Over 1.5 Goals’ and ‘Eibar to Score in Both Halves’. The side from the Basque country have really found their stride in front of goal this season, especially in 2017, and should be capable of causing a very shaky Osasuna back-line plenty of problems.
Excluding trips to the top-four, Eibar have scored two or more goals in five out of eight on the road this season. On top of this, again excluding matches against the big four, José Luis Mendilibar’s men have found the net at least twice in each of their last five La Liga matches, scoring a total of 17 goals in doing so. Quite frankly, Eibar have been scoring goals for fun against the run of the mill teams in this division and ought to be champing at the bit to get at this Osasuna defence.
Not only have Eibar looked good going forward of late, but Osasuna have looked abysmal defensively. The hosts have conceded no less than 18 goals in their last five matches, while the manner in which Petar Vasiljević’s side capitulated against both Las Palmas and Villarreal recently suggested that they’ve almost given up trying to prevent what looks like an inevitable relegation, at least from a defensive standpoint.
In front of a home crowd, things have gone poorly for Osasuna since pretty much the start of the campaign. They’ve conceded a total of 30 goals and have kept just one clean sheet on their own patch, conceding two or more on 11 occasions. In addition, Los Rojillos have conceded at least one goal in both halves in nine of their 12 home matches, including in each of their last six.
Right now, these are two teams that are operating on different levels. The visitors are playing good football and, with ten-goal Sergi Enrich spearheading their attack, complimented by the likes of Pedro León and Adrián González, offer a significant attacking threat. Whereas Osasuna look as though they could be knocked over by a strong wind at this moment in time.
The fact that Eibar recorded a comfortable 3-0 victory (scoring both sides of half-time) when these two met at this venue in the Copa del Rey earlier in the season also bodes well.
To complete the betting-armory ahead of this fixture, a third and final bet to go for is ‘Over 2.5 Goals’. Goals haven’t been far away at all when these two teams have been involved with three or more match goals hitting the net in 69% of Osasuna’s home matches and in 67% of Eibar’s away matches. It seems unlikely that goals will elude this one and, therefore, at odds of 19/20, ‘Over 2.5 Goals’ is worth being on.
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