Next Saturday, 6th of December 2014, a fragile Deportivo La Coruña will go head-to-head with a surprisingly strong and cohese Málaga at the emblematic Riazor for round 14 of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match of paramount significance to the Galician historical club, since they are currently third from bottom and have the relegation ghost breathing on their necks already this early on the season.

Deportivo last weekend’s performance at Vicente Calderón against the current La Liga champions, Atlético Madrid, was nothing but a perfect portrait of what the team has been so far this season. The Galician team arrived at the Spanish football top tier this season, after ending second at Liga Adelante (Spanish football 2nd tier) last term, but their life in this new reality has been far from easy. Victor Fernández took the helm of the team back in July, after Fernando Vásquez’s departure, but the usual large intake of players and the considerably fragile board structure are giving the experienced Zaragoza born manager plenty to think about.

Deportivo are currently below the relegation line with just ten points from 13 matches and judging from what we have seen from them this season (with the exception of the home match against Valencia), the future doesn’t look very bright.

Victor Fernández has already tried several different tactical variations without abandoning his usual 4-3-3 based style, but the team have not yet managed to produce anything very special. Their 3-0 home win against the surprising Valencia was their most impressive moment so far in this campaign, nevertheless, the team failed take something positive out of that spectacular win and returned to underachieving performances two weeks later, when they entertained Getafe and lost by 2-1.

Their weekend’s match against Málaga at Riazor will definitely be a very complicated one, since they will face one of the most interesting teams of La Liga this season. For that particular clash, Victor Fernández will probably still not be able to rely on the contribution of the Argentinean midfielder Fariña and of Lucas, both currently sidelined due to injury.

As for Málaga, the Andalusia team have been having a very pleasant campaign at La Liga so far and are currently on the 7th place of the table with the same amount of points of Villarreal.

Last Saturday night, Málaga put up a fairly good performance against Real Madrid at La Rosaleda and, although they did not manage to win the match, they left a very good image of themselves, as they caused several problems to the current European champions.

The match at Riazor next Saturday will certainly pose a good opportunity for them to return to wins, as they will face an opponent that is, in theory, fairly inferior to them at the present moment.

Málaga are favourites to clinch the three points from their travel to Galicia next weekend, although if Deportivo manage to replicate their last month's performance against Valencia, they will certainly experience some problems.

Deportivo La Coruña

Stats: W-0 L-2 D-3

Recent Form - LDDLD

Málaga

Stats: W-2 L-3 D-0

Recent Form - LLLWW

Possible Line-ups

Deportivo La Coruña (4-3-3) -Fabri - Juanfran - Diakite - Sidnei - Luisinho - Rodriguez - Wilk - Medunjanin - Dominguez - Cavaleiro - Postiga

Málaga (4-2-3-1) - Kameni - Rosales - Angeleri - Weligton - Boka - Camacho - Darder - Samuel - Castillejo - Samuel - Santa Cruz

Prediction

Deportivo La Coruña 1 Málaga 1