Our Pick:
Villareal Over 1.5 Goals @ 1.80
One team with a fairly stellar offensive lineup facing off against a team which has been somewhat weakened in the summer transfer window in the first game of the season. It’s also worth noting that Villareal will be playing in front of their home fans again, which should add to the overall intensity of the game.
Villareal are fresh off their disappointing Super Cup final loss against Chelsea, and they’ll be looking to start this season in a similar way as they played for the majority of last season. They play some incredibly entertaining and attractive football in La Liga in my opinion, and their offensive lineup is formidable. We know Moreno may have been a tad disappointing in the Euro’s, but the man is an absolute assassin in La Liga. In the previous season Villareal games averaged around 2.7 goals per game, both at home and away.
Villareal will be facing off against Granada who have made a habit out of putting bigger teams under pressure in away games, but still ending up losing. A quick glance at their away games since the start of this year will showcase their tendency to concede at least two goals in a huge amount of games. Granada have recently let Roberto Soldado go and replaced him with a former Villareal man in Carlos Bacca, who (despite his age) still has real potential to positively affect any game in my opinion, and his experience is irreplaceable. However, we doubt we’ll see him in the starting lineup for this one. Overall, the Granada squad have been weakened in the summer transfer window, but I still expect them to put up an offensive fight against Villareal, which I believe will lead to a similar result as many of their away games did last season. In the previous season Granada averaged around 2.9 goals per game, and around 3.2 in away games.
We would go for the over 2.5 goals overall in the game otherwise, but we’re not entirely convinced by Granada’s current offensive lineup, which we mentioned previously has been somewhat weakened. However, it should be a fun game to open the La Liga season for both teams, and hopefully an offense-heavy, competitive game at that.