Almeria vs Las Palmas Predictions

Las Palmas head to Andalusia this Saturday to take on an Almeria side which has enjoyed a mixed start to the season in the Spanish Segunda Division. They will be bidding to gun down a Las Palmas side that is intent on securing an immediate return to the top flight following on from their relegation last season.

So far, it has been a pretty encouraging start for fans of the Canarian club. Paco Jemez departed at the end of last term and they managed to pull off a bit of a coup by landing Manolo Jiménez, fresh from a surprise Greek title win with AEK. They’ve a 50% win ratio so far under the 54 year old in the Segunda Division and they sit in 3rd place heading into this round of fixtures.

Almeria are another side with relatively recent top flight experience but they’ve hit turbulent times on and off the pitch since falling out of La Liga in 2015. Three bottom half finishes in the Segunda Division have followed but they have at least managed to narrowly avoid the drop to the third tier. They’ve been doing a bit better this term and currently lie in 11th under Fran Fernández and they’d probably take a season of mid-table mediocrity, given how the last few years have panned out.

This game is one of the tougher ones to call this weekend in the Spanish second tier but there looks to be a bit of value in backing the hosts to come out on top. They suffered a slightly surprising defeat at Cordoba last time out but had won four on the bounce in all competitions prior to that. That sequence included impressive wins over current leaders Malaga in the Copa del Rey as well as league successes against Zaragoza and Numancia, two sides that reached the play-offs last term.

Those results suggest they quite enjoy the underdog tag and with home advantage they could just get the job done here. Las Palmas have never been known as convincing travellers, with long flights to every away match the norm for them. 11 of their 15 points this term have come at home and they have only won 1 of their last 18 competitive away fixtures overall.

Therefore, backing Almeria Draw No Bet could be the smart move as the Andalusians look to build on a pretty solid start to the season.