Girona vs Rayo Vallecano

Estadio Municipal de Montilivi is the venue as top-four hopefuls Girona and bottom-half Rayo Vallecano go head-to-head in a lopsided La Liga encounter.

Girona’s surprising La Liga title pursuit took another stumble last week as a 3-2 defeat at Athletic Bilbao condemned them to back-to-back league losses for the first time this season. With table-topping Real Madrid beating Sevilla earlier in this round, ‘Los Blanquivermells’ will take the field trailing runaway league leaders by nine points, highlighting the significance of maintaining a four-game unbeaten H2H run across all competitions (W2, D2). Michel Sanchez’s men have won both competitive clashes against Vallecano this season ‘to one’ and will be out to make it three out of three, buoyed by their superb home form. Indeed, they’re unbeaten in their last eight home league outings (W6, D2), netting multiple goals on five occasions. Girona will need their frontline at its best after failing to keep a clean sheet in their last eight H2Hs against Vallecano.

Rayo Vallecano’s free-scoring form against Girona inspires confidence among the traveling supporters amid the club’s dreadful six-game winless league run (D2, L4). But ‘Los Franjirrojos’ showed they’re no pushovers last weekend, holding title-bidding Real Madrid to a 1-1 home draw to end a three-game losing league stretch. Despite fighting back from a deficit on their two most recent La Liga travels to Atletico Madrid and Mallorca, Vallecano ended up losing both matches, confirming their long-standing struggles when conceding first. Inigo Perez’s men have only returned two points from losing positions in 2023/24 (D2, L9), suggesting another slow start could fuel their fears of being sucked back into a relegation fight.