Next Sunday, 14th of September 2014, a motivated Valencia will entertain Espanyol at the mythical Mestalla for round 4 of the Spanish Liga BBVA.

After their disappointing campaign last season, Valencia seem to want to return to the good old days when the team was always among the top 5 of the Spanish football. The new Che manager, Nuno Espirito Santo, has been doing a very convincing job so far and Valencia keeps an unbeatable record after two league matches.

After an impressive draw against Sevilla on day 1, Valencia hammered Málaga during the last round of La Liga by 3-0, although the match was not particularly easy. In fact, it was the visitors who assumed control since the early moments of the match, although the style they adopted was disrupted when Darder was shown the red card on the 26th minute of the first-half. Málaga’s strategy went down the drain and Los Che assumed control of the match scoring three goals without response. Paco Alcácer, Parejo and Piatti netted in the home side goals and helped Valencia to obtain their first win of the competition.

For the match against Espanyol, Nuno Espirito Santo will still not be able to count on his team’s recent major signing, Álvaro Negredo, who was warmly welcomed by supporters at Mestalla, since he is currently recovering from his long term injury.

As for Espanyol, the new season have certainly not started the way they were expecting. After a 1-1 draw at Almeria on round one of La Liga, Espanyol were defeat at home by the UEFA Europa League winners Sevilla two weeks ago and thus are still looking for their first win of the tournament.

The Catalan team is not going through the most impressive moment of their history as the financial problems from last season still seem to endure. Their new manager, Sergio González, definitely needs more players as he doesn’t have many quality options to chose from and that fact was fairly noticeable on the match against Sevilla.

For the complicated match against Valencia, Sergio González is not yet certain if he will be able to rely on the contributions of Moreno and Caicedo, who are currently sidelined due to injury problems.

When both sides met at Mestalla last season, the match ended in a thrilling 2-2 with both sides putting up a fairly good performance. Next Sunday, however, things might be different, as this new Valencia seem to be twice as strong as they were last season.

Valencia

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - WDWLW

Espanyol

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LDWLD

Possible Line-ups

Valencia (4-3-3) - Diego Alves - Gayá - Otamendi - Vezo - Barragan - Javi Fuego - Parejo - André Gomes - Feghouli - Piatti - P. Alcácer

Espanyol (4-2-3-1) -  Casilla - Mattioni - Colotto - González - Álvarez - Sánchez - López - Sevilla - Sergio Garcia - Montañés - Stuani

Prediction

Valencia 2 Espanyol 1