Atletico Madrid vs Villarreal

High-flying Atletico Madrid will be aiming to extend their 100% start to their new La Liga campaign when they meet slow-starting Villarreal at the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano.

Atletico Madrid’s La Liga title defense has been off to a flying start, with ‘Los Rojiblancos’ claim a pair of victories via a single-goal margin, both of which were followed by a 1-0 HT lead. As a result, the reigning Spanish champions are now on a run of five consecutive league triumphs by a narrow one-goal margin, four of which yielded the identical 2-1 FT score. Additionally, Diego Simeone’s men have been a force to be reckoned with at the Wanda Metropolitano in 2021, having lost just one of their 12 home La Liga matches since the turn of the year (W9, D2) while winning the last seven in a row. The hosts seem likely to at least avoid defeat here, having alternated between winning (3) and losing (3) across their previous six top-flight H2Hs in the capital.

In the meantime, the visitors have yet to either score or concede after two La Liga games this season (D2) and are actually winless in their last nine matches since lifting the Europa League crown in 2020/21 (D5, L4), friendlies accounted. A brace of uneventful scoreless draws to start their new La Liga campaign includes a goalless draw away to promoted Espanyol, marking their first league road trip in ten to see them draw a blank (W4, D3, L3). Encouragingly for the neutral, ‘El Submarino Amarillo’ have never played out three consecutive goalless stalemates in their top-flight history. In turn, the last and only time Villarreal failed to score in their opening three matches of a new La Liga season was in 2006/07. But after drawing a blank twice in their last three league visits to Atletico, they might not be so confident of ending their goal drought here.