Eibar vs Atletico Madrid 19/01/20

19 January 2020

Sixteenth-placed Eibar welcome third-placed Atletico Madrid to the Estadio Municipal de Ipurua, desperately looking to post their first-ever win in La Liga (LL) H2Hs (D2, L9).

But, the hosts are enduring a challenging period in Spain’s top tier, having suffered five defeats in their last seven league outings (W1, L1), with five of those fixtures seeing them draw a blank. Only four sides have scored fewer LL goals than Eibar (18) so far, although 61% of those goals have come on home turf. Curiously, ‘Los Armeros’ are the only team in the Spanish top division that has yet to play out a draw at home this campaign (W4, L5), with three of their five home defeats coming in the last four fixtures. Scoring the opening goal will be essential in Eibar’s efforts to avoid failure here, as they’ve won all four of their previous LL home matches where they’ve broken the deadlock.

On the other hand, the visitors travel to the Municipal de Ipurua on a run of three consecutive league triumphs, as they now trail table-toppers Barcelona by five points. Interestingly, before securing the abovementioned wins, ‘Los Colchoneros’ have failed to pick up a single win in three successive league fixtures (D2, L1), scoring a total of one goal across those matches. Hence, Atletico’s upturn in results is a consequence of their improvement in the final third, considering Diego Simeone’s men have scored precisely two goals in each of their previous three league victories. Still, the Madrid giants have been far from impressive in front of goal, scoring an average of 1.15 goals per LL fixture, with just 36% of their total LL goals netted coming away from home (eight of 22).