Villarreal 0-1 Barcelona – Betting Review
Match Summary
The contest was deserving of more goals but due to some wasteful finishing and excellent defending, it ended with Barcelona winning yet again by the minimum 1-0 margin.
Barcelona extended their lead at the LaLiga summit to 11 points with a 1-0 win at the Estadio de la Cerámica, the away win was fair and probably should have been by a larger size based on chances created on breaks.
Villarreal tried hard but were extremely vulnerable to breaks, fair scores 0-2 and 1-3.
As expected, the host missed their focal point in attack Gerard Moreno, while by contrast, the absence of midfielder Sergio Busquets did little to affect Barcelona’s fluidity in the first half.
Villarreal looked exposed from early when Robert Lewandowski raced through on goal with just two minutes on the clock, but he uncharacteristically fired his effort straight at Villarreal keeper Pepe Reina.
There was little Reina could do when the striker later soon assisted Pedri to connect a on beautiful goal which somehow turned out to be the only goal of the entertaining match.
The 20-year-old Pedri’s stock is rising quickly this season, he worked superbly well in a midfield diamond that controlled the first half.
Quique Setién’s possession-based approach led to little, but right before the break José Luis Morales missed a clear chance on a one-on-one, hitting the side netting when he should have gone to the far post.
That gilt-edged chance renewed Villarreal’s belief in the more even second period.
Villarreal respected Barcelona more and adopted a physical, counter-attacking approach.
Barça’s defence, led by a hugely important Araujo, gave little away in truth but they did suffer a little to hold on.
Barcelona ended up holding on late on but 0-1 doesn’t tell the full story of the game which was entertaining and at times, very end to end.
However, Xavi’s side have now conceded just 0.35 goals a game – the lowest of any team in Spain and the top European leagues. In this game they were given a test, although Villarreal definitely missed Moreno as outlined in the preview.
To their credit, Villarreal’s efforts were constant until the end. They saw a late goal ruled out for offside, but were ultimately unable to truly test Marc-André ter Stegen when throwing the kitchen sink at Barcelona.
Betting Analysis
Looking at the 1×2 market first. Barcelona is in excellent form and continued that with a win @ 1.83.
Moving onto the Asian handicap betting for this contest. As mentioned in the preview, Barcelona -0.75 @ 2.06 was attractive knowing any kind of win paid out profit at the odds against price
Looking at The Under/Over goal betting last of all. The game ended Unders but definitely merited more goals, 2 or 3 specifically. Under 2.75 won @ 1.84.
