Winners of four of their last five matches across all competitions, Villarreal are flying high at the moment in La Liga play and are just one point away from securing the fourth Champions League spot. Meanwhile today's visitors, Valencia, are looking for their first league win under their new coach Gary Neville and to maintain pace of a European spot.
Both sides are missing some key footballers through injury. For Villarreal, Eric Bailly will be missing through a shoulder injury while Adrián and Daniele Bonera remain on the sidelines. Los Che will be without a multitude of their most important players as Jose Gaya, Shkodran Mustafi, Zakaria Bakkali, Sofaine Feghouli and first choice goalkeeper Diego Alves miss this clash.
Form of the two clubs
As mentioned earlier, the men in yellow are on another level at the moment. They have only dropped two points in their last five matches -- a CdR match and a Europa League fixture mixed in between -- and are doing it with great production in the final third of the pitch while defending as a unit. The squad that maraud up and down the pitch is an extremely balanced one. During this same stretch, Villarreal has scored ten goals and have only conceeded four, keeping three consecutive clean sheets in the league.
In their last match against Real Sociedad, they dominated every facet of the affair. Denis Suárez scored a goal on either side of the halftime interval, securing the 0-2 victory as his side sat back and absored the pressure from Sociedad. The hosts in this outing would shoot the ball a grand total of 12 times, but 10 of them completely missed the target.
Valencia need to regain their form from last season quickly. If they do not start stringing together a couple of wins in a row here and there, they will not be able to play in any kind of European football next year. The prroblem with this side this season is their inability to sustain any kind of form for more than one week. One week, this club look as if confidence will be starting to build as they put in a good shift against tough opposition.
The best example of this came in the match against Barcelona when Paco Alcacer worked hard to level the match late in the game. But then, they would lose the next Champions League match and draw against Eibar the following weekend. It is really frustrating not knowing which Valencia side will show up from week to week because they have the potential to be among the top five clubs in the country
Match prediction
This is going to be a very tight match. Being away from home, Valenica are going to sit back and soak up pressure until they can find a way to counter down the other side of the pitch with their quick, pacey wingers. On form alone, though, one would most certainly think that the hosts will come away with all three points.