El Madrigal will be rocking on Wednesday evening as Villarreal will play hosts as Atletico Madrid come to town hoping end the season on a high note.
It has been a rough couple of weeks for Villarreal as they have not won a match since the early parts of March -- their last victory came in a 4-1 demolishing of Celta de Vigo on the eighth of that month. In fact, the number of total goals they have scored since that game with Celta is three, which is really quite astounding. What has happened to them? Are they going to continue to free fall for the remaineder of the season? While they still hold on to the final Europa League spot for the time being, Malaga and Athletic Club are both six points behind with six matches to go.
One of the key reasons why Villarreal have been struggling is the fact that they are without three key footballers. Luciano Vietto has been very important to this team's success leading the team in goals scored with 12 in his first season n Europe. Unfortunately for him, he missed last week with a back injury and will be missing this vital clash with Atletico Madrid. Another important figure for the hosts is veteran striker Ikechukwu Uche has been suffering from injury problems all season which is one of the reasons why his season total has been so low. Finally, we come to Mexican international Giovani dos Santos. He is Villarreal's midfielder who does all of the orchestrating for going forward up the pitch.
The defending champions have had a bit off on off year and are currently in third place, twelve points behind Barcelona, meaning that they will not be able to hold onto their title this season. Although, this should have been noticed from the beginning of the season because of all the transfers the club has made over the last several months. Mario Mandzukic was a good addition to the squad, but he just does not provide that physical presence that Diego Costa did last season won they won their title.
Antoinne Griezmann has really shone brightly throughou this campaign, however, scoring acrobatic goals and using his fantastic vision to feed his teammates. In his first season at Atletico he has an amazing 22 goals -- leads the team -- and will only get better as he ages. One thing that Diego Simeone has done this season is he has given young footballers the chance to prove themselves. Saúl and Giménez have made the most from their chances as the pair have played in some big matches.
Atletico Madrid are going to go all out from the very first whistle and this match is not going to be close at all. The visitors have too much ability up top for Villarreal to handle and with all of their injuries in key areas, they will not be seeing much of the ball even at home.