Barcelona vs Almeria Prediction - An Apparently Easy Match For Barça To Take

Next Wednesday, 8th of April 2015, a super moralized Barcelona will entertain a deeply fragilized Almeria at Camp Nou for round 30 of the Spanish Liga BBVA.

After Real Madrid rampant win over Granada earlier last Sunday, Barcelona was forced to win at Los Balaídos in order to restore their four point advantage over the current World and European champions, and they did. A narrow but extremely valuable 1-0 win against Celta was the best Barcelona managed to get against a mighty Galician team that proved once again they are far from being pushovers.

A single goal from the French defender Jeremy Mathieu in the second-half of the match proved to be enough for Barça to leave Los Balaídos with the three points. Their opponents, however, have reasons to complaint regarding the referee’s work, who failed to punish Barcelona with a penalty kick after Claudio Bravo tripped Nolito inside the box before the break. The match could have ended differently if Los Celestes had managed to score first, but  it is fair to say that Barça are deserved winners of what was a very entertaining match.

The upcoming match against Almeria will probably not be very difficult for the Catalan team, especially if we have in mind the visitors’ poor recent form and what happened last season, when Barça hammered them by 4-1.

As for Almeria, things are definitely not easy for the Rojiblancos, who haven’t won a single match since early February, when they snatched the three points during their visit to Cordoba. Last weekend’s painful home defeat against Levante was the end of the line for their manager, Juan Ignacio Martinez, who parted ways with the Andalusia club after the match. The reserves’ team manager, Miguel Rivera, will now take control of the team for a short period of time, but he will almost certainly be on the bench at Camp Nou next Wednesday.

This sudden managerial change will surely not produce any major results in the team until Wednesday and, for that reason, Barcelona’s favouritism for the match is blatantly obvious.

Barcelona

Stats: W-5 L-0 D-0

Recent Form - WWWWW

Almeria

Stats: W-0 L-3 D-2

Recent Form - LLDLD

Possible Line-ups

Barcelona (4-3-3) - Bravo - Alves - Mathieu - Mascherano - Adriano - Busquets - Iniesta - Rakitic - Neymar - Suárez - Messi

Almeria (4-2-3-1) – Navarro - Dos Santos - Trujillo - Mendez - Verza - Azeez - Soriano - Corona - Wellington Silva - Hemed

Injury List / Suspended Players

Barcelona

Jordi Alba (inj)

Vermaelen (inj)

Almeria

Sebastian Dubarbier (sus)

Michel Macedo (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Barcelona

Lionel Messi

Luis Suarez

Neymar

Almeria

Tomer Hemed

Fernando Soriano

Corona

Predictable Goal Scorers:

Barcelona

1. Lionel Messi
2. Luis Suarez
3. Neymar

Almeria

1. Tomer Hemed
2. Fernando Soriano
3. Edgar Mendez

Half-Time Score

Barcelona 2 Almeria 0

Full-Time Score

Barcelona 4 Almeria 0