Villarreal vs Alaves: La Liga Gamethread

Alaves has won more times at La Ceramica than they have any other away stadium since they returned to La Liga. We need to be on our guard as much as possible today, and with Atleti coming on Saturday, a win is desperately needed. An unfortunate byproduct of having European ambitions in a league as competitive as La Liga is that there are simply no nights off in the league.

If we are speaking bluntly, we have yet to have a truly feel-good performance so far tonight. We were perhaps a bit unlucky against Huesca, business like but a little shaky against Eibar, and simply awful against Barca. I want to see this club deliver a resounding pop to an opponent, just to show us they can, and I’m hoping that’ll be tonight.

Lineups

With Trigueros stepping in for Chukwueze, it looks like we’ll be in a 4-3-3 with Gerard playing as a right winger. It’s an interesting amount of faith in Paco, and I would not be surprised if he came off at the hour for either Samu or Kubo. I think this is our best possible midfield three though, and I’m very happy about that.

After going three in the back their first two matches, this is the second consecutive 4-4-2 for Alaves. I think this is a tactical mistake on their part. We now have the ability to outnumber them in midfield in the exact same way Barcelona did to us in the first half last Sunday. Now we just have to be able to capitalize on it.

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