Athletic Bilbao vs Barcelona Predictions, Betting Tips and Match Previews

Barcelona’s 4-0 loss at this ground in the Spanish Super Cup last season is still a sore point for some Barca fans, but their overall recent record against Athletic is actually very good and they’ll be confident that this will be a very different night.

It hasn’t been a brilliant season for Luis Enrique or his Barcelona side, with Real Madrid currently in pole position in La Liga but over the final few weeks of 2016 we saw some real indications that Barca were starting to rediscover their brilliant best form. Leo Messi in particular put in some outstanding displays to round off the year and the winter break should enable the menacing ‘MSN’ to come to Bilbao refreshed and ready to go.

Barcelona’s last 4 matches have seen them score 18 goals and concede just once. Even their fringe players looked in very good touch in the last round against Hercules and Arda Turan netted two hat-tricks in December, which is a sign that Barcelona will still be very strong, even if Luis Enrique opts to leave out one of his front three.

Since losing to Barcelona in August, Athletic have won 10 of their 11 home games in all competitions so they have built up some momentum at San Mames. However, few sides they’ve faced have offered anywhere near the sort of attacking threat that Barcelona do. Athletic aren’t always that convincing at the back and both teams have scored in 6 of their last 8 games so not unlike Barcelona, there are usually goals when they play. Although they won’t be too gung-ho here, they’ll also know if they want to progress in this tie, most of the work will surely need to be done on Thursday night in Bilbao.

As a result Athletic will look to get forward when they can and try to get main goal threat Artitz Aduriz into some goal-scoring positions. However, when Barcelona are close to their best, which they have been in recent games, there are few sides that can stop them and with Athletic not totally convincing at the back, taking a punt on Barcelona to win & Over 2.5 goals at 5/4 could be the best approach to take here.