La Liga: Villarreal’s Perfect Start to Continue in Madrid

Getafe vs Villarreal

Top plays bottom at the Coliseum Alfonso Perez on Sunday when Villarreal head to the suburbs of Madrid to take on pointless Getafe.

Unai Emery’s Villarreal are full of confidence at the moment. They made their way to the 2022 Champions League semi-final last season, but the Yellow Submarine finished their domestic league campaign in seventh place and so find themselves in the 2022/23 Europa Conference League.

The head coach will take the European competition seriously as ever, but Emery’s aim is to achieve a top four place in La Liga and his team has made the perfect start, coming to Getafe on the back of a victory in a potential top four clash against Atletico Madrid.      

Meanwhile, Quique Sanchez Flores’ Getafe have looked badly out of sorts in their two openers and need a lift before the gloom sets in.

I don’t expect it to come on Sunday, though.

Talking Points

Villarreal firing on all cylinders

The La Liga 2022 betting odds are certainly taking the Yellow Submarine seriously with a SBOTOP price of 25.00 to win the title.

Remember, not so long ago Leicester City won the Premier League at a starting price of 5001.00. If Villarreal continue to rack the wins up over the next few weeks, we could see their price slide towards single figures and that’s when to watch really closely.

They come into the game on the back of a 2-0 win away to Hajduk Split in a Europa play-off, having won the home leg 4-2 and the aggregate victory takes the club into the Conference League group stages.

Villarreal had a tough test in Croatia as ex-Inter Milan striker Marko Livaja threatened to cut the deficit, giving the visitors’ defence plenty of problems but goals from Alfonso Pedraza and striker Samuel Chukwueze eased the Spaniards to victory. 

And Villarreal’s La Liga 2022 results have gone as well as they could too with two away wins in the league, 3-0 against Real Valladolid and then 2-0 away to Atletico taking them to the top of the table, on six points alongside Real Madrid, Real Betis ,and Osasuna.

Gerard Moreno and Yeremy Pino were on target against Los Rojiblancos and Emery will be keen to keep the two together against the backdrop of Premier League leaders’ Arsenal admiration for Pino with five days of the transfer window remaining.

The player has five years left on his contract but there is a buyout clause of £67-M which could tempt the ambitious Londoners.

The win over Atletico was Emery’s first ever victory over Diego Simeone on their 20^th managerial meeting – another reason for the Villarreal boss to be happy in contrast with his opposite number Quique, whose problems are beginning to stack up.  

Getafe’s defencive woes getting worse

After finishing the 2021/22 campaign in 15^th place, Getafe are priced at 6.00 to be relegated. It is not time to panic yet, but a 3-0 loss at home to Atletico Madrid on the opening day, followed by a 3-1 reversal away to Girona has given Quique little to smile about.

Losing to new boys Girona was bad enough, but defender Fabrizio Angileri copping a red card in stoppage time made it a wretched night for Los Azulones who already have defencive duo Damian Suarez and Omar Alderete out injured.

Quique’s team is short on numbers and the two losses followed on from 1-0 defeats in Getafe’s last two pre-season friendly games.    

Forward Enes Unal scored Getafe’s consolation goal against Girona and the tall Turk, who has scored 21 in 67 games for Los Azulones, is the hosts biggest goal threat.

History

Villarreal have won 23 of the 36 head-to-head meetings with Getafe this century.

Los Azulones have won eight and drawn five of the encounters, but they have returned empty handed from each of the last six meetings which the Yellow Submarine have won with a goal difference of 11 to three.

The teams last met in April when Villarreal took a 2-1 victory away from Getafe as two early goals from Gerard Moreno and Manuel Trigueros put the Yellow Submarine in charge before Unal halved the deficit with half an hour remaining.  

Betting Tip

Villarreal are unbeaten in 13 and Getafe are winless in seven. Every run has to be broken sometime and why not two at once. If you fancy an upset, then Getafe is priced at 4.07 to win with the draw at 3.16.

But I don’t think these particular runs will be broken on Sunday and Villarreal at 1.88 is a good bet. For a correct scoreline of 1-0 to Villarreal is at 5.84, while a 2-0 win is at 7.33.

If you fancy Getafe to earn a first point of the campaign, then 1-1 at odds of 5.60 is worth a shout.

 

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