AZ vs Athletic Bilbao Betting Tips

The Basque side have made a really poor start to their La Liga campaign with a return of just 4 points coming from their opening 6 fixtures. They’ve done much better in the cups, claiming the Spanish Super Cup and progressing into the Europa League group stage, where they beat Augsburg in their opening fixture.

With 3 points already under their belts in this competition, Ernesto Valverde is likely to rest players in this game as surely moving up the league will be his priority. A poor start to last season basically cost Athletic a shot at the top four and if their disappointing form continues for much longer they’ll probably be out of the hunt for Champions League football again.

Valverde may feel that his side are well capable of winning all their home games in what isn’t a terribly tough Europa League group and will leave a few players at home for the away games when possible. They have a huge match on Sunday at home to Valencia so the likes of top scorer Artitz Aduriz will in all probability be rested here and that can only be good news for the Dutch side.

AZ are in good form having won their last two matches, scoring 9 goals in the process and they look to be over their early season troubles and pushed Partizan close in Belgrade in their opening group game too, losing 3-2.

With home advantage for the 3rd time in 8 days and with confidence high after two big wins AZ look really good value at 5/6 to get a result here against what should be a weakened Athletic Bilbao side. The Basque club haven’t won away from home yet this season and that inludes not particularly difficult trips to Inter Baki and Zilina in qualifying for this phase.

Indeed they were beaten 3-2 at Zilina in the play-off round and there is no reason why an AZ side that reached the Quarter Finals only two seasons ago can’t cause an upset here. There are usually goals whenever they play and they will take the game to Athletic. That could result in a fairly open contest with goals at both ends but the more motivated side will certainly be AZ Alkmaar especially given they need a win having lost on the opening day. Therefore consider backing the Dutch club to win 2-1 at tempting odds of 12/1.