Atletico Madrid vs Las Palmas

Estadio Metropolitano forms the backdrop for a high-stakes La Liga showdown between title hopefuls Atletico Madrid and relegation-battling Las Palmas.

A 2-0 win against sixth-tier UE Vic in midweek Copa del Rey action was a welcome distraction for Atletico Madrid after a narrow 1-0 loss at Real Betis last weekend condemned them to their first La Liga defeat this season. Despite that impressive piece of statistics, Diego Simeone’s men have only won five of their opening 11 league outings (D5), hence a substantial ten-point deficit on table-topping Barcelona. Indeed, ‘Los Rojiblancos’ have registered just one win across their last four league outings (D2, L1), failing to score more than once in all three winless fixtures during that stretch. But they’ve had no such problems against Las Palmas, netting 3+ goals in their last two top-flight H2Hs in Madrid to uphold their 100% home league record this century (W4).

In the meantime, Las Palmas thrashed lower-league Ontinena 7-0 in Copa del Rey in midweek, building on back-to-back La Liga victories against Girona and Valencia. However, the visitors commence this round in the bottom three, trailing 17th-placed Espanyol by a point, largely thanks to their notorious travel sickness. Before squeaking past Valencia 3-2 on their last La Liga trip, Las Palmas had lost their opening four away league matches by a combined score of 9-3! That’s ominous for the Canaries, considering they’ve drawn a blank in all four away league H2Hs against Atletico Madrid since the start of the new millennium!