Rotations aplenty as Villarreal visit Getafe (GAMETHREAD)

Villarreal play Getafe away in a match that we (Villarreal USA “we”) probably haven’t thought enough about this week, excited as we are to reach the Champions League semifinals. But it probably is a match we have to win to have any chance of catching the clubs closest to us in the table.

Real Sociedad and Real Betis drew earlier, so Betis is on 57 points, La Real 55, and we have 46 heading into this match. Athletic Club, a point behind us, host Celta tomorrow.

Villarreal’s XI is the following:

Rulli; Aurier, Mandi, Pau, Pedraza; Samu, Iborra, Parejo, Trigueros; Gerard and Paco.

Bench: Asenjo, Mario, Albiol, Capoue, Foyth, Estupiñan, Danjuma, Dia, Lo Celso, Rubén Peña, Yeremy and Moi.

I’m a bit surprised we’re playing Rulli and not Asenjo, thought Yeremy might get a start today, but not too surprised by the rest (though I wish we could give Pau a day off).

This looks like our usual 4-4-2 that becomes a bit of something else in attack with Trigueros as the main distributor.

Getafe: David Soria; Cabaco, Mitrovic, Cuenca; Damien Suarez, Carles Alena, Arambarri, Maksimovic, Mathias Olivera; Enes Unal and Sandro Ramirez.

They’ve got Borja Mayoral and Vitolo on their bench, among others.

Our record against Getafe has been pretty good, actually— we’re 12-1-3 at home against them and a creditable 6-4-5 on the road. Back in September 2017 they defeated us 4-0 here in a match that got Fran Escribà the sack, and in January 2019 we lost 2-1, that being a match where Karl-Toko Ekambi missed a penalty right at the end when we had Gerard and Santi Cazorla both on the pitch. Kind of a defining moment of our brief Luis Garcia Plaza era.

Go ahead and use this as the gamethread, all those who have been asking for one, OK?
Endavant Villarreal!