Athletic Bilbao vs Villarreal Betting Tips

Both sides are currently in the top 6 in La Liga which makes this perhaps the most competitive tie of the last 16. Villarreal have won their last 5 matches in all competitions and picked up a huge win at fellow high-flyers Deportivo La Coruna at the weekend when Bruno netted an injury time penalty to secure a 2-1 victory.

In 4th place currently they are the side in pole position to secure Champions League football next season and they are now only a point behind Real Madrid in the league. With Europa League football still to come too, we can expect plenty of changes from Villarreal here and Marcelino has tended to fully rotate his squad in the cup competitions so far this season.

By contrast Ernesto Valverde put out a curiously strong line-up in the 2nd leg of Athletic’s Copa del Rey tie with minnows Linense in the last round. Already leading 2-0 from the 1st leg, the likes of Raul Garcia, Inaki Williams and Aritz Aduriz all started the return leg which Athletic won 6-0 and the Basques are likely to again go strong here as they look to reach the final for the 2nd year running.

Athletic could only draw 2-2 at the weekend against Las Palmas but have lost only 2 of their last 18 fixtures, winning 12 of them and given they have home advantage and are likely to field the stronger eleven, they look good value to win this at 5/6.

They do have a tendency to let in a sloppy goal every now and then though and you can never rule out Villarreal nicking one so consider backing this to finish in a 2-1 home win at 15/2, a scoreline that would leave the tie finely poised ahead of the 2nd leg.