The 17th round of LaLiga will see 3rd placed Sevilla visiting a bottom table team Leganes at Estadio Municipal de Butarque.
Sevilla is currently sitting at a comfortable 3rd place in the league, 3 points behind Atl. Madrid and 2 points above Real Madrid. Their record as of now is 9-4-3 and an impressive 3-2-0 in the last 5 games. To be fair it’s only impressive at a first glance, and let me explain why. Sevilla has barely defeated Espanyol 2:1 with a late goal and bare in mind, Espanyol is in a terrible form as of now. In the next match, they barely defeated 13th placed Valladolid (1:0). up next were 2 draws against Alaves and Valencia (1:1) where they Sevilla did not perform better than their opponents. I could even argue they were outplayed in the offensive end. So, yes they did win 3 and drawn 2, but the performance was far from good. In the most recent match, Sevilla defeated Girona 2:0. In the mentioned match, we did not see a goal in the first 45 minutes despite 7 goal attempts and 3 shots on goal from Sevilla and 3 goal attempts with 1 shot on goal from Girona. In the second half, Sevilla had 10 goal attempts and 2 shots on goal. The opener was scored in the 55th minute when Sevilla was awarded a penalty kick. Only 9 minutes later Sarabia scored another goal for his team, which more or less sealed the deal for Girona who was 2 goals behind with only 26 minutes left in the match. The score hold firm for the remainder of the match which ended with a final score of 2:0, which was Girona 2nd away defeat in a row.
The home side today, Leganes are currently 16th in the league with 18 points and an overall record of 4-6-6. In their last 5 games, Leganes has won 2 matches and drew 3. In the span of those 5 games, Leganes scored a total of 6 goals and conceded only 3 which is quite a decent result. In Leganes most recent match against Celta Vigo, we did not see any goals being scored despite a total of 20 goal attempts from both sides combined. Final score: 0:0.
So what do we expect from this match? Leganes has been playing well at home, where they hold a 3-3-1 record this season. In the span of those 7 games, they have scored 8 goals and conceded 6. At home ground, they even went on to defeat Barcelona in late September (3:1) and played a draw against Atl. Madrid at the start of November (1:1). That is a quite impressive result, as they managed to stop the top 2 teams in the league. On the other side, Sevilla is 3-3-2 in the 8 away games, scoring 17 goals and conceding 11. As of now, they have played 3 consecutive draws in away games against; Real Sociedad (0:0), Alaves (1:1) and most recently Valencia (1:1). In their last 5 away games in the league and the Copa del Rey, Sevilla is 0-4-1. The biggest issue Sevilla will have to face heading into this match is the absence of Sarabia, who scored a goal every 77 minutes in all competitions this season. His presence in the team was noticed, as he was involved in 23 goals this season. In addition, when Sarabia played, Sevilla won 22 games and lost only 12. Without him, Sevilla has won only 4 out of 12 matches played and lost 5. Also, they will have to play without Bangea, an exceptional defensive player, who managed to keep a clean sheet in 40% of the games he played. All in all, with 2 key players missing on the visiting side, Sevilla will struggle against Leganes, who has been performing well at home ground. Taking all into consideration, this match could easily end in a draw so an AH +0.25 bet on Leganes will be our pick for this match.
Prediction: Leganes +0.25 Asian Handicap
Odds: 1.82 SBOBET
