It’s sure to be a tense atmosphere at Mestalla Stadium, but the Valencia supporters have done an excellent job of dragging their side through this relegation battle in recent weeks, highlighted by their record of just one defeat from their last five home league outings.
Valencia
This Derbi de la Comunitat carries added importance for both sides, especially Valencia, who suffered an expensive defeat at fellow relegation rivals Cadiz last time out (2-1). That loss ended a mini-revival of two successive wins and forced forward Hugo Duro into an X-rated rant post-match where he called out his teammates for a lack of attitude as Valencia now welcome their fierce rivals with just a two-point cushion to La Liga’s relegation zone. It’s sure to be a tense atmosphere at Mestalla Stadium, but the Valencia supporters have done an excellent job of dragging their side through this relegation battle in recent weeks, highlighted by their record of just one defeat from their last five home league outings. With five-straight H2H home wins in tow, Valencia should be confident they can get the required positive result here to put further daylight between themselves and the drop.
Villarreal
The scales have rarely been tipped more in Villarreal’s favour, however, and they’re sure to be motivated by the prospect of pushing their fierce rivals closer to the La Liga relegation zone. Aside from that, they’ll also want to strengthen their own grip on a spot inside the top-six and two successive league wins has certainly aided that charge as they finished the last round on 53 points, holding a nice cushion to seventh place. A first finish inside the top four since 2015/16 is also well within their grasp, because even though Villarreal find themselves five points behind Real Sociedad in fourth, Imanol Alguacil’s men have to take on Real Madrid in this midweek round.
Should Sociedad drop points in that clash, then adding to a dominant record against sides starting this round 16th or below could see that gap cut to just two points at the conclusion of this game week.
Valencia would have hoped for more from their veteran forward Edinson Cavani who has yet to score a La Liga goal in 2023, but encouragingly his last did come against this very opponent in December. Villarreal defender Juan Foyth scored the winner in that game but will need reminding to keep his cool having picked up three yellow cards across his last five La Liga outings having also picked one up in this season’s reverse. The winner on the day has scored exactly two match goals in each of the last eight competitive H2H meetings.