Valencia vs Rayo Vallecano

Estadio de Mestalla is the venue as European hopefuls Valencia take on bottom-half strugglers Rayo Vallecano in a must-win contest.

It’s crunch time for Valencia’s faltering effort to return to European football after a four-year absence. They start this matchday five points adrift of the top seven in La Liga following a dreadful three-game losing streak. With four games left, there’s no margin for error as Los Che bid to complete their first top-flight double over Rayo Vallecano since 2011/12 after a narrow 1-0 win in the reverse fixture. Despite not losing a league H2H at Mestalla since December 2012 (W3, D3), they’ve drawn three of their last four home league meetings with this opposition, casting doubt on their quest to return to winning ways. Moreover, Ruben Baraja’s men have lost back-to-back home matches in the build-up to this clash and could make it three in a row for the first time since 2016.

Visiting Rayo Vallecano slumped to a shock 1-0 home loss to basement boys Almeria last weekend, extending their dismal run to one win in five La Liga games (D2, L2). While there’s no reason to panic yet as the visitors sit eight points clear of the bottom three in 17th, four scoring blanks across their last five league outings can’t make manager Inigo Perez proud. His men have stuttered on the road in recent months, going seven consecutive away league matches without a win (D2, L5) since a 2-0 triumph at Getafe in early January. Again, five of those seven winless fixtures saw Vallecano fail to get on the scoresheet. As such, it’s hard to expect Los Franjirrojos to post only their second win in their 23rd visit to Mestalla (W1, D7, L14).