La Liga: Levante vs. Villarreal

This derby match couldn’t really have come at a worse time for Levante. Save for a miracle, they will be playing second division football next season, as they are currently fourteen points adrift at the bottom of the table and their morale must be on the floor after yet another defeat at the weekend. They lost away to Atlético Madrid by three goals to nil and were lucky the match didn’t end in a more embarrassing score line.
Villarreal meanwhile are on a roll and could even over take Barcelona for the second spot if the Catalan side fails to win their league game. A Villarreal win here coupled with a draw for Barcelona will see Villarreal go second as their personal goal difference is better than Barca’s. Villarreal beat Barcelona at home by three goals to one in October and a couple of games ago also beat them at the Nou Camp. Villarreal haven’t lost in the league in seven games and another victory here is obviously more than possible. However, in their two nil home win over Zaragoza at the weekend, they didn’t play as well as they have been doing recently and Zaragoza dominated most of the match. Villarreal were extremely lucky not to concede any goals and escaped with three vital points which Zaragoza really deserved more.
Levante boss Giovanni Di Biasi will have to find a way of shoring up his defense for this match as against Atlético they showed an abysmal lack of organization in the first two goals. I’m going for a clear Villarreal victory here, as they can almost smell the second league place up for drabs and won’t allow Levante a chance to get in the game. Turkish striker Nihat is in a state of grace at the moment and if he isn’t scoring he is setting up one of his companions to do the job. This seems to be Villarreal’s forte, as the goals are quite evenly spread among five or six players instead of being concentrated of just the forwards.
Prediction: Away win (1-4)