Osasuna welcome Valencia to Estadio El Sadar on Monday night as two teams who’ve fallen on hard times look to improve their fortunes.
Having struggled from the off, Osasuna have never really been at the races this season and, barring a miracle, it looks as though the side from Pamplona, who’ve recently changed manager for the third time since the start of the campaign, will be heading straight back down to the second division in May.
Things haven’t gone too much better for the visitors either. Valencia fans are accustomed to seeing their side sit three or four places from the top, but this season they’ve been treated to nothing of the sort. Los Murciélagos have hovering dangerously above the relegation zone for much of the campaign and as a result recently parted company with manager Cesare Prandelli. However, despite things not going to plan as of yet, this is an excellent opportunity for Valencia, under the familiar stewardship of caretaker boss Voro, to forget about their woes and record a much needed three points.
At odds of 1/1 and 6/4 respectively, ‘Valencia to Score Over 1.5 Goals’ and ‘Valencia to Win & Over 1.5 Goals’ are two bets to go for ahead of this one. Despite their troubles, Valencia do possess plenty of quality within their ranks and they should have more than enough about them to overcome a very poor Osasuna side.
If we look at their away record, Valencia have struggled to pick up results on the road. However, when we consider that they’ve faced the likes of Celta, Sociedad and Sevilla in recent away outings they can’t be faulted too much and a fair observation would be that they’ve just been edged out by some very good teams. Valencia may have only recorded two wins away from home, but they’ve rarely failed to pose a threat going forward, drawing a blank just once in eight attempts.
Having scored ten goals away from Estadio de Mestalla, the visiting side have netted at least twice on three occasions, including in both of their matches against opposition who were towards the foot of table (Leganés and Gijón – two teams who’re undoubtedly better than Osasuna). With this in mind, it’s not hard at all to see them causing the worst defence in the league plenty of problems.
The hosts really have been nothing short of abysmal this season. At times their attacking threat has been non-existent, while they’ve often offered very little resistance defensively. They’re without a win in eight attempts at home and have scored just four goals. Regardless of how well, or how bad in Osasuna’s case, a team defends, if they can’t score goals then their chances of staying up become very slim indeed. On top of this, in conceding 15 goals overall at El Sadar this season, Osasuna have conceded at least twice on six occasions.
It’s no secret that Valencia are experiencing problems of their own right now but they remain a club with potential and have more than enough quality within their squad to climb the table – something that certainly cannot be said about Osasuna.
When the two teams meet on Monday night, the visitors are without a doubt the team to side with and they can come out on top having scored a couple of goals in the process.
See Monday’s FA Cup tip here.