On Sunday Villarreal head to the veritable minefield that is the Estadio Mediterraneo to take on an Almeria side who until last week had one of the best defensive records in La Liga. Their 6-3 loss to Atleti wasn't so bad though considering they played with 9 men for the majority of the match. When Almeria visited El Madrigal they came away with a point following a closely fought 1-1 draw. The man who scored that day will again be the danger man on Sunday, Alvaro Negredo is enjoying a fine season and currently has 11 goals to his name. Almeria are also deadly from set pieces as they have shown throughout the season and particularly last week against Atleti. Villarreal will be looking to bounce back from an abysmal performance against Sevilla with a win. Pellegrinis choices for the first eleven are very much inhibited by injuries.Guille is out along with Tomasson and both Godin and Cani are struggling, Capdevila meanwhile is suspended. A back four of Venta, Gonzalo, Cygan and Angel has been suggested whilst it is expected that the rest of the team will be as it was against Sevilla.A win is crucial if we want to keep a stranglehold on second place and if we wish to keep any fading title dreams alive. I expect to see a considerable rise in the performance level with the players knowing how they didn't perform last weekend. Nihat and Rossi will have to make a bigger contribution as will Santi if he retains his place. I would be delighted to leave with a 0-1 win, we will need to keep it tight early on and then start to find our rhythm, I'm pretty confident we can leave the seasiders with 3 points. VAMOS VILLARREAL! Edit - Squad for the game is as follows
- Diego López, Juan Carlos, Javi Venta, Gonzalo, Cygan, Josemi, Angel, De la Bella, Josico, Marcos Senna, Pires, Eguren, Cani, Cazorla, Matías Fernández, Bruno, Nihat, Rossi y Guille Franco
Notable additions are Guille Franco which is good news and de la Bella and Juan Carlos have been called up from Villarreal B as cover. De La Bella played a fair bit in pre season. That's a squad well fit to beat Almeria.