Málaga vs Granada - The Fear of Relegation Will Cast Its Shadow on This Game

Next Sunday morning, Málaga will entertain Almería at La Rosaleda for round 32 of Liga BBVA on what will certainly be another close battle to escape the relegation zone for both teams.

The home side grabbed an important victory last Monday at Andalusia against Real Betis and jumped to the 12th place of the table, right behind Celta de Vigo and four points behind Espanyol, the team occupying the 10th place. Bernd Schuster’s boys have only obtained their victory goals on the last ten minutes of the match and relied on an inspired Willy Caballero, who, despite his poor judgement on Real Bétis‘ goal, managed to produce some incredible saves throughout the match and ended up being a key element on his side’s win.

For next Sunday’s match against Granada, the German head coach will not be able to include the midfielder Fernando Tissone, who contracted a serious knee injury during training recently and who will thusly miss the rest of the season.

Granada had a major setback last Monday on their home match against Levante. The team from Andalusia had everything in their favour to win the match, especially against a fragilized Levante side that was on a four game spree without a single win. However, Granada didn’t manage to produce anything special and ended up losing the match to a very effective and practical team, which has, in theory, almost secured their presence at the Spanish football top tier with their Monday night win.

Granada’s manager, Lucas Alcaraz, will have plenty of things to consider before his team’s match at La Rosaleda next weekend. His team looks very soft when it comes to defending and usually has plenty of difficulties when they face a more pragmatical team such as Málaga.

For next Sunday’s match, Lucas Alcaraz will probably not be able to rely on the presence of the Spanish forward Piti and of Tiago Ilori, both of them sidelined because of injuries.

When Málaga visited the Estadio Nuevo Cármenes back in November, they were crushed 3-1 by the home side, with an hat-trick by the Moroccan wonder El-Arabi.

Málaga

W-8 L-14 D-8

Recent Form - DWLWL

Granada

W-10 L-16 D-4

Recent Form - LWDWL

Possible Line-ups

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

Granada (4-3-3) - Roberto - Nyom - Coeff - Murillo - Angulo - Recio - Buonanotte - Iturra - Riki - El Arabi - Brahimi

Prediction: Málaga 2 Granada 1