Sevilla v Real Valladolid

It’s another Friday night game for Sevilla, who took part in the La Liga opener last week and who lost 2-1 on the road at Osasuna. Obviously, that wasn’t the start they were looking for, so they’ll be determined to bounce back in Matchday 2 and they have the perfect fixture for it, at home to newly promoted Real Valladolid, who lost their own first game of the campaign 3-0 at home to Villarreal.

Sevilla’s Matchday 1 loss can be largely explained by their problems in central defence. Or, rather, the lack of a central defence. They made the trip to face Osasuna with just one natural centre-back, in Karim Rekik, but this week they have summer signing Marcão recovered from an injury and another summer signing Tanguy Nianzou, who was signed on Wednesday.

The Sevilla central defensive situation is much improved, then, even if it’s still not perfect. They’ll also be going up against a much weaker opponent, as Real Valladolid were toothless in attack against Villarreal last weekend. That’s largely down to the absence of Shon Weissman, their top scorer from last season with 20 league goals. Weissman is still out injured and that’s a huge blow for the newly promoted side. His replacement Sergio León simply isn’t at the same level and didn’t get a single shot off last weekend.

At the other end Sevilla will follow Papu Gómez’s rhythm should be able to break down Real Valladolid’s defence enough times, after which they’ll have the chance to bear down on Sergio Asenjo, probably the weakest starting goalkeeper in all of La Liga this season, as evidenced by his statue-esque performance against Villarreal last weekend.

Even though Sevilla have just lost Tecatito Corona to a long-term injury, after he broke his ankle in training on Thursday, that is more of a problem for long-term squad depth than for this specific game, which he wasn’t certain to start anyway.

So, everything points to this being a great opportunity to get their first win of the season. They had the second-best home record in La Liga last campaign, winning 12, drawing six and losing one, so will be confident as they host one of the division’s minnows.

Osasuna v Cádiz

As mentioned above, Osasuna got off to the perfect start to the season by defeating Sevilla 2-1 last week. It wasn’t just the result that was positive for Osasuna, as they also enjoyed great performances from summer signings Rubén Peña and Moi Gómez, a fully fit Chimy Ávila and the emergence of academy graduate Aimar Oroz. With a second home game in a row, they’ll aim to repeat all of that.

Cádiz, on the other hand, had a very disappointing opening weekend. They lost 1-0 at home to Real Sociedad and it could have been more had it not been for a good performance from goalkeeper Jeremías Ledesma. In fact, Cádiz’s xG against of 2.64 was the third-highest from the entire opening weekend, only behind Elche (who had to play 75 minutes with 10 men vs Real Betis) and Alméria (who had to face champions Real Madrid).

It makes sense that Cádiz struggled, since they had a lot of injuries for that opening weekend, especially in central midfield. Their injury situation isn’t any better for this match, so this could be a very difficult away trip against an Osasuna side with their entire squad available.

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