Real Valladolid vs Espanyol Prediction and Betting Tips

Valladolid go head-to-head against Espanyol on Monday. Read our Predictions and Betting Tips with Match Preview, Head-to-head stats (h2h) and Team Form Analysis.

Real Valladolid vs Espanyol Match Preview

La Liga, KO: 18:00 Aug 19, 2024, Estadio Jose Zorrilla

Sunday’s football game at Estadio Jose Zorrilla pits together Real Valladolid and Espanyol, the two sides who aim to kickstart the new domestic campaign in great manner. A man to watch in the home team will be former Mallorca attacker Amath Ndiaye, who is likely to prove a handful for the opposition back-line. Experienced defender Sergio Escudero has joined Deportivo La Coruna on a free transfer.

Los Periquitos, on the other hand, suffered a 2-1 loss to Heidenheim in their last warm-up game and given their difficulties on the road, we predict that Valladolid are going to emerge triumphant in Monday’s showdown. To make things even worse for the Catalan outfit, important forward Martin Braithwaite has signed a deal with Brazilian club Gremio. In their last meeting at the venue the two sides played out a goalless draw and yet another low-scoring affair is on the cards.

How the bookies view it: The hosts go in as favourites

Real Valladolid secured automatic promotion last season while Espanyol needed to come through the playoffs so it is perhaps unsurprising that the hosts are the favourites for this match. A Real Valladolid victory has been priced at 11/8 with 100jili while a victory for Espanyol has been priced 11/5. The draw, which would probably suit both teams, has been priced at 21/10.

Recent head-to-head: Not much to split them

There isn’t too much to take from the recent H2H record between Real Valladolid and Espanyol given that both teams have experienced victories over the other in recent times. Over the past five years, Real Valladolid have won three of the seven matches, as have Espanyol. Only one of the last seven matches has finished in a draw so expect a result one way or the other.

Players to watch: Stepping into Braithwaite’s shadow

Martin Braithwaite was the biggest reason for Espanyol’s promotion campaign last season but the 33-year-old has elected to join Gremio on a free transfer this summer instead of sticking with the Spanish club.

Replacing Braithwaite was a virtually impossible task but the man Espanyol are hanging their hat on is Irvin Cardona. The Frenchman has signed on loan from Augsburg after recently enjoying another successful loan spell with Saint Ettiene in France.

Espanyol will be hoping that Cardona’s loan spell will go as well as Victor Meseguer’s did at Real Valladolid last season. The midfielder was the club’s leading goalscorer in all competitions and has now signed on a permanent deal. It will be intriguing to see how he copes with the jump up to La Liga.

Predicted line-ups

Both teams are missing players for this one with goalkeeper, Arnau Rafus, set to miss out for Valladolid and Edu Exposito to sit in the stands for Espanyol. On the flip side, several new signings could make their debuts including Stipe Biuk and the aforementioned Cardona.

Real Valladolid: Hein – Perez, Comert, Sanchez, Rosa – Juric, Meseguer, Biuk – Ndiaye, Moro, Latasa

Espanyol: Pacheco – Tejero, Gomez, Cabrera, Romero – Aguado, Kral – Veliz, Milla, Puado – Cardona

Real Valladolid vs Espanyol Prediction

All the above observations suggest a result in favor of the home team at Estadio Jose Zorrilla on Sunday. Also, Espanyol failed to score in three of their past six road trips. Since Valladolid has an offensive line which scored 18 goals in their last 10 home matches, we like to start with a 2-0 win for them here.

Another thing to note is that the last two wins of Valladolid at home saw their offensive line scoring at least 2 goals. Also, they have scored 2 each in two of their past three clashes against Espanyol at this venue. Backing the home team to score over 1.5 goals seems to be a decent pick for this match.