Villarreal vs Levante - Will Villarreal Be Able To Overcome Their Recent Poor Form?

Next Saturday, Villarreal will entertain Levante on a Valencian community derby at El Madrigal for round 33 of Liga BBVA on what will certainly be a very important match for both teams’ aspirations.

“The Yellow Submarine” appears to be adrift for quite some time now. Villarreal have only won one of their last seven matches and their at-home form this term is far from being brilliant. Last weekend, Villarreal suffered a narrow defeat at Vicente Calderón against the league leaders Atlético on a match that was definitely not within their grasp, especially during the first half, .

The team’s head coach Marcelino Toral is worried with his side’s recent lack of goals and poor performances and, despite recognising that their last weekend’s opponents are the best team at La Liga, he believes that his side needs to improve some aspects of the game. Despite the less positive moment, the players look optimistic and in a recent interview, the Spanish midfielder Manu Trigueros stated that Villarreal can aim for something greater than the 7th place of the table and that his side will battle until the end to achieve that.

For next Saturday’s match against Levante, Marcelino Toral will probably not be able to count on one of his most important players, the Mexican forward Giovani dos Santos; however, he will be happy to know that the Argentinean centre back Mateo Musacchio has recovered from his recent injury and he is ready to get back into action.

As for Levante, they are also not enjoying the best of times. Les Granotes have only won one of their last six matches and they seem to be losing some energy now that we are near the end of the season. Last Monday, the team sucumbed at home to Athletic Bilbao and suffered another defeat after having returned to victories against Granada two weeks ago. At the end of the match, Levante’s head coach, Joaquín Caparrós, was far from being pleased with his side’s performance and with some lack of commitment from his players, thus admitting that Athletic Bilbao deserved the win.

For next Saturday’s match, the Spanish boss will not have the Austrian talented midfielder Ivanschitz at his disposal due to injury and he will probably also not be able to count on some other players that are not yet fully recovered from their recent injuries: Mohamed Sissoko and Juanfran García.

Last November, when both teams measured forces at Estadi Ciutat de Valencia, Villarreal completely tamed the home side and won the match by 3-0 with two goals from Uche and one from Soriano. Will Levante be able to avenge that shameful defeat next Saturday at El Madrigal or will they be an easy prey for the Yellow Submarine?

Villarreal

Stats: W-14 L-11 D-7

Recent Form - DLWDL

Levante

Stats: W-10 L-12 D-10

Recent Form - LDLWL

Possible Line-ups

Villarreal (4-4-2) – Asenjo - Mario - Gabriel - Pantic - Costa - Manu Trigueros - Bruno - Goméz - Cani - Perbet - J. Pereira

Levante (4-2-3-1) – K.Navas - Vyntra - Navarro - Juanfran - Adoua - Simao - Diop - R. Garcia - Casadesús - Xumetra - D. Barral

Prediction: Villarreal 2 Levante 0