Backing miserly Atletico can still be profitable
Opposites collide at the Wanda Metropolitano as Atletico Madrid look to extend a glorious home record against a Valencia side who are the most in form team in La Liga right now.
When you think of opposites attracting, this match couldn’t ring truer. Atletico, have lost one competitive fixture at the stadium this season, a 3-1 defeat to neighbours Real Madrid in February. That aside it has been 18W 3D with 16 clean sheets including their last five home games in a row. That means only six sides have managed to score there all season and only Girona, Real Madrid and Bilbao have managed to find the net more than once.
This imperious home form is much to do with their position behind Barcelona in the table and with only three of their last ten games decided by a single goal, if they do poke their noses in front early, it is usually one-way traffic from then on.
Antoine Greizmann has come back into some form for Diego Simeone’s charges, scoring in their last two home games, taking his tally to 14 La Liga goals for the season. Griezmann is a player who tends to score in 5/6 game spells during his career so I would take strong consideration him scoring again in this one. One of my staple bets in Atletico games is Griezmann & 1-0. Usually getting great double-digit odds and coming in with surprising regularity in the last two seasons.
While Atleti have long been proud of their miserly defence, Valencia are a team that thrives on chaos, excitement and late goals. Both teams have scored in seven of their last nine away games. They have only one defeat in those last nine games.
Over the course of the season, they have had O2.5 in 6/16 away games and 11/33 games overall which leaves them 19 out of 20 teams in La Liga. The team beneath them? You guessed it, Atletico. They have seen just 7/33 games with O2.5 goals scored.
The other telling stat involving these teams is that neither has lost a game in which they were winning at half-time, so whoever can strike first is most likely to be the victor. Conversely, they have both only overturned one half time deficit each throughout the season. In terms of a key player for Valencia, Goncalo Guedes has been in sparkling form scoring five in his last four games including a double last time out in the Europa League.
Atletico Madrid - Valencia Betting Tip
I would love to put up Griezmann and 1-0 but I feel that is a very specific bet and there is value across some of the trends that have been highlighted. Atletico & U2.5 is 13/5 and Atletico to win to Nil is 15/8. If you fancy the BTTS trend of Valencia to continue you can get 7/2 about that and an Atletico win.
It is hard to see Atleti letting this great home record slip despite the superb form of Valencia. With their progression to the Europa League semi-final this also opens another avenue for Qualification to the Champions League which they might view as more plausible given their run in, so I am going to plump for Atletico and U2.5 at 13/5 and hedge my bets on the trends.
