Malaga vs Athletic Bilbao Betting Tips & Predictions

Athletic Bilbao put in a brave effort on Thursday night as they took their Europa League Quarter Final at Sevilla to a penalty shoot-out despite losing the home first leg. However it was a heartbreaking end for the Basques as Benat’s penalty miss handed Sevilla the place in the last four. Athletic now just have the league to focus on and they look certain to finish somewhere between 5th and 7th, all of which will be good enough for Europa League football. They’d rather finish 5th though and avoid the prolonged qualifying rounds which they had to go through this term and may have left them a bit jaded in recent weeks. Prior to this week they’d lost 3 of their last 4 fixtures and were only narrow 1-0 winners at home to Rayo last weekend.

Malaga should be much the fresher of the two sides and are unbeaten in 5 matches coming in to this and have lost just 1 of their last 8. 5 of the 8 have been draws though and they were held to a 0-0 draw in the Andalusian derby at Granada last weekend. They are in 8th place but 7 points below Sevilla directly above them so European qualification may be just beyond their grasp.

This game is likely to be a low-scoring one like most of the recent meetings between the clubs. The visitors are without the injured Aduriz, who is by some distance their main goal threat and they are a much less threatening side without him while Inaki Williams is also a doubt and he would most likely to take his place if fit. Malaga’s last two wins were both by 1-0 margins and they have the best defensive record outside the top four but the 4th worst goalscoring record in the league so if they are to win it’s likely to be a narrow one and backing Malaga to win 1-0 at 6/1 looks the best approach here in the correct score market.