Atletico Madrid vs Athletic Bilbao

May 1, 2015
By: Nemanja Lazarevic

La Liga champions Atletico Madrid made another important step towards a top 3 finish by defeating Villarreal on the road and they will be searching for fourth successive win when they host Athletic Bilbao. Los Leones are tied on points with seventh-placed Malaga following the 1-1 draw in the Basque derby, but they will have bigger fish to fry at the weekend.

Torres to the rescue

Atletico Madrid have shown tremendous quality and character this season and the way in which the team respond to disappointing results is simply amazing. It is the fighting spirit that has been their biggest trait under Diego Simeone, with each and every footballer completely dedicated to the team cause. Many teams would struggle to recover from a narrow defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals especially having conceded a very late goal, but Atletico produced a perfect response, recording a 3-0 victory over Elche before also defeating Villarreal at El Madrigal. And while red-hot Antoine Griezmann scored a brilliant double in the first of those matches, it was revived Fernando Torres who scored the winner after coming off the bench against the Yellow Submarine. And with Diego Simeone set to continue his rotation policy against Athletic, the hosts should have the upper hand over the opposition on Saturday afternoon. Having won 13 of last 15 home games in La Liga, Atletico can be trusted to extend the impressive run of results.

Diego Simeone will again have all his players available for selection, although he is expected to make some changes.

Missed opportunity against La Real

Athletic Bilbao are another side that have enjoyed a pretty successful season, even if things didn’t seem too promising in the opening exchanges. But, once the European campaign came to an end, los Leones seriously raised their performances, and are now very close to achieving pre-season objectives. Nobody was surprised to see Athletic qualify for another Copa del Rey final, even if that was by no means an easy task, while Ernesto Valverde’s charges also improved their league position to come on the brink of Europa League places. In spite of the 1-1 draw with bitter rivals Real Sociedad, Athletic are level on points with seventh-placed Malaga, but it remains to be seen whether they can pip los Boquerones to the final European berth. Athletic appear to have suffered a minor dip in form of late, which had something to do with some important players picking up injuries, and they don’t look capable of upsetting in-form Atletico at Vicente Calderon. Nevertheless, the visitors can be trusted to adopt a positive approach and we should, therefore, see a very open encounter.

The visitors will have Xabier Etxeita back from suspension, but wingers Iker Muniain and Ibai Gomez are out injured.

Verdict

With their Champions League campaign over, Atletico can fully focus on La Liga and they appear to be in good enough form to see off weakened Athletic Bilbao. Los Leones have been far from impressive in last two matches and I cannot see them getting anything from this match.

Top pick: Home win   1.45 (9/20) @ Ladbrokes

Alternative pick 1: Atletico/Atletico   2.20 (6/5) @ BetVictor

Alternative pick 2: Over 2.5 goals   2.00 (1/1) @ Paddy Power

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  1. dabang says:

    atletico Madrid will win over atletico Bilbao