Getafe vs Villarreal

High-flying Villarreal travel to the Coliseum Alfonso Perez to take on bookies favourites to wave goodbye to La Liga, Getafe.

Despite scoring the fewest goals of all sides to have secured La Liga survival last season, Getafe extended their top-flight status for another year. However, the home side’s La Liga journey could be drawing to a close this term after ‘El Geta’ started the season on a run of two league defeats, returning a morale-crushing -5 goal difference from those fixtures (GF:1, GA:6). Indeed, a brace of multi-goal margin losses to Atletico Madrid and Girona has taken their losing La Liga streak to three games, all of which saw them concede 2+ goals. They are now staring down the barrel of a four-match losing run accompanied by over 1.5 conceded goals for the first time in their top-flight history. Villarreal’s upcoming visit to Madrid won’t be dolling out any favours to Quique Sánchez Flores’ team, as they’ve lost all three previous league H2Hs at home.

In the meantime, Villarreal capitalised on a 4-2 first-leg home win over Hajduk Split in their Europa Conference League playoff tie, beating the Croats 2-0 on the road in midweek to capture their place in the competition proper. Momentum is firmly on their side here, with Unai Emery’s team winning both La Liga outings this season via an aggregate score of 5-0, including a stunning 2-0 victory at Atletico Madrid last time out. Interestingly, ‘El Submarino Amarillo’ have won their previous three La Liga matches ‘to nil’ and could make it four straight top-flight triumphs without conceding for the first time since 2014. There’s plenty of reason for optimism in the Villarreal camp, especially considering they’ve won all three previous La Liga visits to the Madrid-based clubs.