Espanyol vs Sporting Gijon Betting Tips

The newly promoted side made a pretty impressive start to life in the top tier with a win in La Coruna and creditable showings in tough games against Real Madrid, Real Sociedad and Valencia from which they gained 2 points. However since then they’ve lost 2 on the spin although they have both been narrow 2-1 defeats against Betis and Rayo Vallecano.

The Rayo game really hinged on the sending off of Sporting’s Bernardo Espinosa and subsequent penalty with the game goalless in the 39th minute. Sporting fought valiantly considering that and have been really impressive away from home overall, which is encouraging for their survival prospects and will take some pressure off them when they play at home.

They have every chance of getting something from this game against an Espanyol side who have rode their luck at times and perhaps aren’t great value for the 9 points they’ve acquired so far. They also have a mountain of injury problems to contend with here.

Missing for the hosts will be the suspended Papakouli Diop as well as the injured quartet of Anaitz Arbilla, Salva Sevilla, Antonio Raillo and Abraham. Espanyol are generally considered to be a strong side at home but the stats don’t completely back that up and they’ve only won 3 of their last 9 games at the Power8 Stadium and they were all by a 1-0 scoreline.

Therefore Sporting look really good value at 5/6 to get at least a point from this game. Whether they are capable of getting more than that seems doubtful though given Espanyol are a pretty well organised outfit and Sporting will be eager to avoid 3 defeats on the trot and get another point on the board.

Espanyol too will be keen to put in a more solid display than the one they gave in the 3-0 defeat at Deportivo last time out. Therefore this could be tight and a 1-1 draw looks a likely outcome and can be backed at 5/1.