Valencia vs Girona

Estadio de Mestalla sets the stage for a revenge-poised La Liga encounter between Valencia and Girona. 

Valencia’s European hopes took another hit in midweek La Liga action as they suffered a narrow 1-0 loss at Real Sociedad, making it five winless league matches on the trot (D1, L4). Eight points behind the top seven ahead of the penultimate round, the hosts come into proceedings having failed to score in their last three league outings! Ruben Baraja’s side opened the scoring in the reverse fixture against Girona but eventually slumped to a 2-1 defeat and will hope for a better outcome this time. Against this backdrop, they’ve failed to draw first blood across their last four La Liga home games (D2, L2), netting just once in the process!

In the meantime, Girona slipped to a frustrating 1-0 home loss to Villarreal in midweek, effectively relinquishing their hopes of pipping Barcelona to a runner-up finish. Back-to-back winless league clashes (D1, L1) have demoted the Catalan side to third, four points adrift of second-placed Barca. Hitting the road doesn’t bode well either, with Michel’s team losing five of their last seven league matches away from home (W1, D1). Mestalla is hardly a place for Girona to find redemption, considering they’ve suffered five defeats on their last seven La Liga visits to this venue (W1, D1).