Villarreal face a relegation battling Cordoba in a vital home match

7 matches without a win isn't our greatest run ever.   Villarreal haven’t won since our thrashing 4-1 of Celta Vigo in March.
We have lost our last two matches at home and fans will not be happy to lose again.  If it had been close losses it may have been different,  but having lost 3-0 to Espanyol and 2-0 to Sevilla, we are really struggling.

On the plus side, we have still retained 6th place and a Europa league spot so far.  Even though it was down to the hard work and uninjured squad at the start of the season we will need to get three points on Sunday to secure that.  Malaga lost and Espanyol drew, so the margin between sixth and seventh is five points with a game in hand going into this match, and nine points to eighth.

Villarreal

Squad: Asenjo Juan Carlos; Mario, Rukavina, Jaume Costa, Jokic, Víctor Ruiz, Eric Bailly; Pina,Trigueros, Jonathan dos Santos, Moi Gómez, Campbell, Cheryshev; Vietto, Giovani, Uche and Gerard.

Despite injuries our squad looks a lot stronger this week.   Vietto and Cheryshev are back, which is vital for our goal scoring.

What happened to Mateo was horrific injury and we wish him a speedy recovery.   As he is no stranger to injury he should be back fighting next season.  Bruno is still out, as are Dorado and Adrian Marin.

Cordoba

Cordoba haven’t had the best of seasons and have been struggling to collect points. Borja Garcia and Daniel Pinillos are out through suspension. Villarreal will be glad to see Aleksandr Pantic return but he won’t be playing for either side,
Like us, the  Andalusians haven’t  won a match in a while and are likely to be relegated to the Segunda Division after just one year at the top (their first in 40 years).

We haven't played Cordoba very much; we did sweep them when in the Segunda in 2012-13.  Earlier this year we won 2-0 away with goals from Vietto and Uche.

Prediction: The submarine will rise again