Villarreal vs Elche: La Liga Preview

Here’s the perfect summary of our season so far: We are undefeated in the league and are looking up at Elche in the table.

We haven’t been healthy the entirety of 2021. We got a little bit better towards the end of the UEL campaign last year health wise, but we were rotating in the league to maximize our chances for a trophy. We really haven’t seen a full health Unai Emery Villarreal side for much time at all in the last year plus.

Frankly, we are kind of at a point where we just need to assume that day isn’t going to come, so we might as well figure out other ways to win.

Our Opponents

We’ve drawn 66% of all our La Liga matches against Elche. I know, that’s not the encouragement you need today, but it’s a fact. Elche are tied with Numancia though for the opponent we’ve faced the most times in the top flight without losing. In better news, we are 10-3-0 in our last thirteen games against other teams from the Valencian region, while Elche hasn’t beaten another Valencian team away from home since 1973. They are 17th in expected goals produced so far this season but do have a win against Getafe on their resume.

Villarreal

There’s just not much to say, anymore. We need a win badly, we’ve only produced 0.3 more xG than Elche has this season, and we are currently sitting in 14th. I’m usually one for hoorah motivational speeches about why we should be optimistic but so far this season it seems like we spent a crap ton of money and made the side no deeper and possibly less coherent in the process. Wins need to start happening, now.

Prediction

I predicted a win against Mallorca and it burned me, but I’ll stick to my guns with our club and call it 1-0 in favor of the Yellow Sub.