Espanyol vs Villarreal

Espanyol and Villarreal are set to trade tackles at the RCDE Stadium for their first La Liga meeting since January 2020.

Espanyol’s return to La Liga was off to a sluggish start as they could only manage a goalless draw at Osasuna on Matchday 1. Supporters will be back in attendance at the RCDE Stadium for the first time since March, which might inspire Espanyol’s hopes of halting a two-game winless home run in Spanish league football (D1, L1). Having returned to Spain’s top-flight after a season away, the ‘Periquitos’ will be aiming to put an end to a dismal 11-match winless streak in La Liga (D3, L8), drawing a blank in their last six such fixtures. Curiously, though, after running out 2-1 victors in their most recent La Liga encounter, Espanyol could post back-to-back top-flight wins over this opposition for the first time in the club’s history.

However, the overall La Liga H2H record heavily favors Villarreal, who boast an impressive win-draw ratio of 82.5% across their top-flight meetings with Espanyol (W19, D14, L7). Additionally, ‘El Submarino Amarillo’ have suffered just one defeat in their last 11 La Liga trips to the RCDE Stadium (W3, D8), with 63.64% of those matches featuring under 2.5 total goals. A dismal 0-0 home draw with Granada to launch the new league campaign, coupled with a return of two losses from their last three away La Liga games (W1), cannot inspire Villarreal ahead of this trip. Unai Emery’s side could pose an early threat, though, having scored a league-high 14 goals within the opening 15 minutes of play in 2020/21, ten of which came on the road.