Villarreal at Atletico Madrid: La Liga Gamethread

I’m typing this up the night before, because I’ll be sliding in to the match juuuuussst as it kicks off, if not a little after. By the time you read this, lineups will have been announced, they may even have been embedded down below. I’m presuming that Unai Emery is going to stick with the same sort of three man midfield that worked so well against a 442 last week for us, and worked so well against our own 442 the week before that.

The only risk here is that Diego Simeone’s 442 is not your run of the mill version of the formation. It’s not even a Europa League level of this formation. No, Diego Simeone just might run the best 442 in the world, so it will take more than a simple numerical advantage in the middle of the pitch to take this result. He may even be happy letting us have the majority of possession.

Luis Suarez in attack will either start or feature in some capacity, and for my money he’s one of the absolute best strikers of his generation (even if his taste of people has needed curtailing from time to time). Joao Felix is emerging as a star in his own right, and if they receive any kind of service whatsoever they won’t need much of an opening to do damage. Marcos Llorente is emerging as a do it all midfielder, so beware of a charging run from him where Iborra gets caught in a footrace.

We can definitely get a result here. More importantly, though, we need to play well to show that the Barca performance was a one off and that we really can play football with the top teams in the division. Endavant!