Next Sunday, 23rd of November 2014, a fairly uninspired Rayo Vallecano will measure forces with a tremendously well organized Celta de Vigo at Campo de Fútbol de Vallecas for round 12 of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match that the home side desperately needs to win in order to put an end to their recent negative streak that started almost a month ago.

After a disappointing home defeat against Eibar three weeks ago, Rayo was hammered at Santiago Bernabéu by the all-powerful Real Madrid and conceded their sixth defeat of the season, the third in the last four matches. Paco Jémez’s boys are currently experiencing a fairly negative moment at La Liga and the match against Celta next weekend could make things even worse for them, given the quality standards of their upcoming opponents.

On their last match against Real Madrid, Rayo displayed some very interesting moments but a row of defensive mistakes cost them another defeat that was especially painful because it was the third in a row in just fifteen days’ time.

Rayo are currently on the 13th place of the table just two points above the relegation line and a defeat on their next match might push them down the table or even throw them to the hopeless pit that is the relegation zone.

Paco Jémez is a fairly experienced manager, used to produce some strong comebacks when things are far from impressive. Rayo’s game flow is fairly interesting but somehow it is failing to produce the expected results, something that Paco Jémez needs to fix urgently in order to restore the confidence levels the team needs.

As for Celta, the Galician team is enjoying a fantastic moment at La Liga, with only a single defeat in 11 matches so far and a win at Camp Nou to help increase the already high motivation levels. After their historical win over the all-powerful Barcelona three weeks ago, Celta failed to materialize their theoretical superiority when they entertained Granada at Los Balaídos two weeks ago and ended up by conceding a goalless draw on a match they controlled since the first minute.

Eduardo “Toto” Berizzo has been conducting an outstanding job at the helm of the Galician team, as he quickly transformed them into one of the most, if not the most, interesting team at Spanish football.

Despite playing away from home, Celta are favourites for the Vallecas’ match, although one can never rule an unpredictable team such as Rayo out.

Rayo Vallecano

Stats: W-1 L-4 D-0

Recent Form - LLLWL

Celta

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - DWWDL

Possible Line-ups

Rayo Vallecano (4-2-3-1) - Toño - Tito - Zé Castro - Abdoulaye Ba - Quini - Fatau - Trashorras - Kakuta - Licá - Bueno - Leo Baptistão

Celta de Vigo (4-3-3) - Sérgio Álvarez - Jonny - S. Gómez - Cabral - Mallo - Hernandez - Radoja - Krohn Dehli - Orellana - Nolito - Larrivey

Prediction

Rayo Vallecano 1 Celta de Vigo 2