Villarreal vs Granada: La Liga Preview

After putting Celta Vigo to the sword last week in La Liga, a heavily rotated Villarreal side suffered quite a bit before finally getting past Tenerife 1-0. Now, in the last match of the first half of the season, we face Granada, a team we are five points and three table slots ahead.

Our Opponents

When speaking to AdamLaLiga about his beloved Granada this week, he gave me a predicted lineup:

“As I write this on Thursday it’s difficult to predict this one but as you’ve put me on the spot I will do so but not before I summarise things. we lost Gonalons to injury against Osasuna so he’ll be out for this one, Foulquier should be able to start this one at right-back and hopefully if we can get through the Derbi at Malaga with no more injuries we can line-up for this game pretty strongly.

I would expect us to start with Rui Silva in goal, Foulquier and Carlos Neva as the full-backs with a centre-back pairing of German and Domingos Duarte, Eteki, Montoro and Herrera in midfield with Suarez, Machis and Soldado in attack. There still remain doubts over Luis Milla who is gradually returning to action following Covid which has impacted our squad the most out of any team in Spain this season so I think Montoro, Eteki and Herrera will start in midfield.”

For more on Granada, their tactics, and their manager, check out our full conversation with Adam here or in the ‘related’ links below.

Granada is very tactically changeable so I’m fascinated to see how they line up.

Villarreal

After this match, we’ll face Huesca again on Saturday. On Friday we find out who our opponent is for the Copa round of 16 (as of right now we have about a 26% chance of facing another lower division foe), and we’ll face Real Sociedad before the end of the month.

I personally expect a lineup very similar to what started against Celta which was:

——

Asenjo

Pena, Albiol, Torres, Pedraza

Parejo-Capoue-Trigueros

Gerard-Fer-Moi

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Paco is supposed to return in this one though I don’t expect him to start. Hopefully he’s fully fit and will put his injuries behind him for the rest of this season.

Predictions

We’re better than Granada. I think we win 2-1.