Villarreal at Sevilla: La Liga Preview

With Christmas behind us, Villarreal recollects itself to play its last match of 2020. This time, it’s Unai Emery’s former club Sevilla who he took to three Europa League titles. This is a team we are close with in the table and a win would be huge for our hopes of finishing top four.

Our Opponents

Sevilla has a lot of the ball, generates a lot of shots, and does it by putting in a lot of crosses. The good news, for us, is that at the 9 position they’ve gone a very long time now without a consistent finisher. Sergio Escudero (who scored an absurd goal against us last season) and keeper Tomas Vaclik will both be out for this one, but they still have plenty of talent to bring to bear.

For a more in depth look at Sevilla, check out our interview with Sevilla fan Chris Lail that can be found here.

Villarreal

Emery seems to have decided that Foyth is the man to stand at the base of the midfield in Iborra’s absence, at least while we work on the reported transfer of Etienne Capoue. Here’s how I think we’ll line up:

buildlineup.com

With all due respect to Fer, I’ll feel a whole lot better about our attack when Paco gets back. We just haven’t created a ton of shots this season, and as long as that will continue to be the case we need as good a finisher as we have out on the field.

Prediction

Two talented teams on the ball who have trouble scoring... I think it goes 0-0 or 1-1.