Next Sunday, 21st of December 2014, La Liga’s reigning champions, Atlético Madrid, will travel to the Basque Country to go head-to-head with Athletic Bilbao at the football Cathedral San Mamés for round 16 of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match of paramount importance for the Colchoneros who quickly need to bounce back from their last round’s defeat against Villarreal.

After an excellent period with five wins in five matches, Atlético was struck by inconsistency once again and failed to win the last three clashes they took part in. Last weekend, they conceded their third defeat of the season by losing at home to an utterly inspired Submarino Amarillo, who once again proved to be one of the most impressive teams of La Liga this season. Diego Simeone’s boys did not have a good match and, although they enjoyed from more ball possession throughout the entire clash, they’ve proven to be fairly ineffective on the finishing department. After that particularly painful defeat, the Colchoneros continued to fail to impress when they hosted a third tier side, Hospitalet, at Vicente Calderon and conceded a somewhat embarrassing 2-2 draw.

Pundits claim that Atlético are not being able to cope with the pressure of being the reigning La Liga champions and that they are also paying the costs of the incredible commitment levels the team put up last season, which has definitely caused some fatigue on Atlético’s game processes and on the players themselves. The departures of Diego Costa and Felipe Luiz also caused some breaches in the team’s structure and, although Simeone has managed to bring in some top quality footballers such as Griezmann and Mandzukic, they are still adapting to the Argentinean manager’s ideas.

The match at Bilbao will definitely be far from easy and Simeone will not be able to count on the services of two highly important players such as Mandzukic and Koke, who are currently suspended.

As for Athletic, the Bilbao team is having a season to forget so far. After a mediocre performance at the UEFA Champions League, the team is also failing to show what they really can do on a domestic level, as they are currently on the 10th place of the table with just 19 points from 15 matches. The departure of Ander Herrera to Manchester United left an empty void in the team and, so far, they have not found anyone able to perform the playmaking task as he did in the past.

Regardless of Atlético’s less impressive moment, they are still firm favourites to win the San Mamés’ clash next Sunday, but they will surely need to dig deep in order to grant the three points.

Athletic Bilbao

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - WDWLD

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - DLDWW

Possible Line-ups

Athletic Bilbao (4-2-3-1) - Iraizoz - D. Marcos - Gurpegi - San Jose - Balenziaga - Susaeta - M. Rico - Muniain - Beñat - Lopez - Aduriz

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Siqueira - Godín - Miranda - Tiago - Gabi - Griezmann - Turan - R. Garcia - Gimenez

Prediction

Athletic 1 Atlético 2