Villarreal host Eibar at El Madrigal on Sunday evening and both teams will be looking to get their seasons back on track after disappointing results in recent weeks.

Villarreal are currently sixth in La Liga, nine points behind Valencia in fourth although they have a game in hand on Los Che. Marcelino's side have hit a sticky patch after Barcelona ended their run of eighteen games without a defeat and they have now lost three of their last five games in all competitions. They lost last week in Madrid to Rayo Vallecano in what was one of their worst performances of the season. Rayo dominated against what was a weakened Villarreal side and thoroughly deserved their 2-0 win.

El Submarino Amarillo will be without Bruno, Adrian Marin and Bojan Jokic for the visit of Eibar but Marcelino may decide to rotate his squad further in order to rest players for their trip to Austria in midweek to take on FC Salzburg in the Europa League. Villarreal won the first leg 2-1 on Thursday and with the winners of this years competition qualifying for next seasons Champions League, Marcelino faces a real dilemma picking which competition to prioritise.

Eibar are now tenth in La Liga, eight points clear of the relegation zone. Los Armeros got off to a great start this season but they are in bad form at present and have picked up just one point from their last five games and have lost their last four in a row.

Eibar will be without Federico Piovaccari who is suspended and Jon Errasti, Didac Vila, Manu Del Moral and Abraham also look set to miss out due to injury. Gaizka Garitano will be concerned at the recent form and while there is still a considerable gap to the relegation places he will be hoping that his side don't slip any closer to the bottom three.

Villarreal will be favourites to take the three points and Marcelino will know this which might tempt him to rest some players ahead of the trip to Austria. However, he rested starters last weekend and it backfired in the defeat to Rayo and he won't want to offer any encouragement to an Eibar side who have shown all season that they can punish teams who underestimate them.

Probable Teams

Villarreal - Asenjo; Rukavina, Musacchio, Ruiz, Costa; Gomez, Trigueros, Pina, Cheryshev; Vietto, Gio.

Eibar - Irureta; Boveda, Navas, Anibarro, Lillo; Borja, Garcia; Lara, Arruabarrena, Berjon; Lekic.