La Liga leaders Barcelona continue their campaign on Saturday with this season’s first derby against Espanyol. They are looking for a seventh consecutive home victory against their city rivals.
Bookmaker William Hill has the odds at 1.75 for Barcelona to score in both halves in the game and at 8.50 for Espanyol to do it.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: December 30th, 8:30 A.M. (EST)
Barca have set themselves high standards for the rest of the campaign, winning 12 of their 14 league outings so far. The team is well on track to winning their first league title since 2019 but there’s still plenty of work to be done.
The Spanish season restarts with Barcelona holding a slight two-point advantage over Real Madrid. The two are set to go toe to toe for the rest of the way and every lost point could end up being very costly at the end of the season.
Barcelona have had a lot of success over Espanyol over the years, but they did lose points against their neighbors last time out in settling for a 2-2 draw back in February and narrowly escaped defeat with a stoppage-time goal from Luuk de Jong.
There’s been a huge upgrade up front this season with de Jong heading back to the Netherlands and Robert Lewandowski joining the Blaugrana. The Polish star has played a huge part in Barcelona’s success this season, scoring 13 of the team’s 33 league goals and posting four assists.
Lewandowski was handed a three-match ban before he headed off to the World Cup, but the club has appealed the decision and he will be eligible to play until the final decision is made.
Espanyol head into the derby with a run of one win, five draws and four losses in 10 games. Manager Diego Martinez has struggled with his squad all season and the team has picked up just two wins from 14 league fixtures. Espanyol have a decent scoring record with 16 goals registered, but a defense that has allowed 22 goals so far has prevented the side from picking up results on a regular basis.
Martinez was likely preparing to face a side that’s going to be without Lewandowski for the contest so the recent news will have been a big blow for him and his troops. Espanyol haven’t recorded a clean sheet in the league against their neighbors since 2016 and with Lewandowski on the pitch, it will be also incredibly hard to get there on Saturday.
