Athletic Bilbao vs Málaga - Will Athletic Return To The Victories At San Mamés?

Next Monday, the Basque side Athletic Bilbao will entertain Málaga at “The Cathedral” San Mamés on the last match of round 33 of Liga BBVA.

Athletic Bilbao grabbed an important win last Monday night during their trip to Comunidad Valenciana to face Levante. Two goals from Aduriz offered the visitors the three points after two matches without a single win. The Basque team are comfortably sitting on the 4th place of the table with more six points than Sevilla but they cannot allow the Andalusian side to get any closer in order to avoid any last minute upset that would push them away from the Champions League’s access places of the table.

At the end of the match against Levante, Bilbao’s head coach, Ernesto Valverde, claimed that his side were the best especially during the first half and that they were aware of the need to win last Monday’s match because of Sevilla’s Sunday result.

For the next match against Málaga, Ernesto Valverde will not count on Carlos Gurpegi that will miss the rest of the season due to injury and he is not yet certain on the availability of Ibai Gomez, since he is not yet fully recovered from the injury problems that have been afflicting him recently.

As for Athletic’s Sunday opponents, Málaga grabbed an important home win against Granada last weekend. The Andalusian side put up a quality performance and have somehow erased from the supporters’ minds the team’s recent home slip-up against Espanyol. Málaga obtained their second win in a row and they will travel to Bilbao with very high confidence levels.

Bernd Schuster will certainly put all his money on the talent of the Spanish youth international midfielder Ignacio Camacho, who is enjoying a very good moment after netting in two goals against Granada last weekend.

When both teams met at La Rosaleda last November, Athletic grabbed a valuable 2-1 win with goals from Mikel San José and Iker Muniain on what was a very close and thrilling match. Despite of Málaga’s positive moment, it is not likely that the Andalusian side has what is necessary to dethrone a powerful Athletic side at their own keep.

Athletic Bilbao

Stats: W-16 L-7 D-8

Recent Form - DDWDL

Málaga

Stats: W-8 L-14 D-8

Recent Form - DWLWL

Possible Line-ups

Athletic Bilbao (4-1-4-1) - Iraizoz - Iraola - S. José - Saborit - Iturraspe - Susaeta - De Marcos - Mikel Rico - Muniain - Aduriz

Málaga (4-2-3-1) – Caballero - Angeleri - Ferreira - Sánchez - Antunes - Darder - Camacho - P. Pérez - Samuel - Amrabat - Santa Cruz

Prediction: Athletic Bilbao 2 Málaga 0