Athletic Bilbao vs Sevilla Prediction - The Battle For The Fourth Place At San Mamés

Next Sunday, Athletic Bilbao will take on Sevilla at the Cathedral of San Mamés for round 35 of Liga BBVA, on a match where the home side will certainly do everything within their grasp to keep their closest contenders to the fourth place of table at bay.

Last Sunday night, Athletic Bilbao left San Mamés with the bad taste of defeat in their mouths after losing 2-1 to Barcelona on match that could have had a different outcome for the Basque team. Athletic played with plenty of intensity and if it wasn’t for ten minutes lacking the proper concentration, Bilbao would still be celebrating their win at Camp Nou today.

Next weekend’s match with Sevilla will be of major importance for the Basque team as they want to keep themselves at the fourth place of table, something that will open them the doors to the UEFA Champions League next season.

For next Sunday’s match against the Andalusian side, Bilbao’s manager, Ernesto Valverde, will not be able to rely on the presence of Gurpegi, who will miss the rest of the season due to injury, and he is not yet certain of the availability of Ibai Gomez and Kike Sola, who are still recovering from their respective injuries.

Their opponents, Sevilla, are currently on a very positive moment at La Liga and they are looking at this match against Bilbao as a good opportunity to dethrone the Basque team from the 4th place of the table.

The Andalusia side grabbed six wins on the last seven matches and was only defeated at Los Balaídos against Celta de Vigo thanks to a late penalty scored by Nolito. Sevilla will also be involved in the UEFA Europa League semi-finals where they will be up against Valencia and that fact might somewhat distract the team from their domestic affairs, thus benefiting Athletic Bilbao.

For the next Sunday’s match at San Mamés, Unai Emery will still not able to count on the young Russian winger Denis Cheryshev and on the Uruguayan midfielder Sebastián Cristóforo, both sidelined because of long term injuries.

When both sides met at Sanchez Pizjuan last December, the match ended in a draw 1-1, with both goals being scored on the first ten minutes of the match, Alberto Moreno for the home side and Markel Susaeta for the visitors. Next Sunday’s match will certainly be very close as well; nevertheless and judging by the Basque’s team good home form this season, they have to be considered favourites to win the match.

Athletic Bilbao

Stats: W-17 L-8 D-8

Recent Form - WDLWWL

Sevilla

Stats: W-17 L-9 D-8

Recent Form - WLWWW

Possible Line-ups

Athletic Bilbao (4-1-4-1) - Iraizoz - Iraola - S. José - Laporte - Balenziaga - Iturraspe - Susaeta - De Marcos - Ander Herrera - Muniain - Aduriz

Sevilla (4-2-3-1) - Beto - Coke - N. Pareja - Fazio - F.Navarro - Carriço - Mbia - Marin - Rakitic - Vitolo - Bacca

Prediction

Athletic Bilbao 1 Sevilla 0