Valladolid vs Granada Prediction - A Battle To Avoid Relegation At Nuevo José Zorrilla

Next Sunday, Valladolid will take on Granada at Estadio Nuevo José Zorrilla for the last round of Liga BBVA on a match of capital importance for both sides, who are still in danger of being relegated, although the visitors only depend on themselves to avoid such a heavy burden.

Last weekend, Valladolid suffered a somewhat unexpected defeat at Benito Villamarín against Real Bétis, who have already been relegated, and now they do not depend only on themselves to be part of La Liga next season. The Pucelanos were always in control of the match and they were leading 3-2 until the 76th minute when Rubén Castro netted in the equalizer. From that moment on, Valladolid looked fragilized and allowed the locals to score another goal, an outstanding scorcher from near the midfield line by Juanfran.

Valladolid are on a very delicate situation: they will need to defeat Granada and hope that Real Bétis are able to cause an upset to Osasuna at Pamplona to keep dreaming with a place at the Spanish football top tier next season.

For the match against Granada, Valladolid’s manager, Juan Ignacio Martínez, will not be able to rely on the contribution of the Angolan striker Manucho, who is sidelined due to injury.

As for Granada, next Sunday’s match is also of paramount importance. The Andalusia team are going through a very negative moment as they’ve only won one of the last eight matches.  Last weekend Granada failed to win their home match against Almeria (who were also on the danger zone before the match) and, consequently, put themselves on a very dangerous position. The Nazaríes will have a very complicated match at Nuevo José Zorrilla next Sunday, as they will face a team that has already forced Barcelona and Real Madrid to drop some points when they visited their ground.

For the decisive match of the season, Granada’s manager, Lucas Alcaraz, will not be able to count on the Colombian defender Jeison Murillo, who was sent off against Almeria last weekend.

When both teams met at Los Cármenes back in January, Granada smashed Valladolid 4-0 thanks to a splendid performance and goals from Recio, El Arabi, and Brayan Angulo. The Nazaríes would certainly wish that history could repeat itself next Sunday, but, and judging by the team’s home performances this season, Valladolid are favourites for the next weekend clash.

Valladolid

Stats: W-7 L-14 D-15

Recent Form - WDDLD

Granada

Stats: W-11 L-20 D-5

Recent Form - LWLLD

Possible Line-ups

Valladolid (4-2-3-1) – Jaime - Rukavina - Mitrovic - J. Rueda - Peña - Rossi- Rubio - Bergdich - Larsson - Jeffren - J. Guerra

Granada (4-3-3) - Karnezis - Nyom - Ilori - Coeff- Foulquier - F. Rico - Ighalo - Iturra - Brahimi - El Arabi - Riki

Prediction

Valladolid 1 Granada 0