Monarcas Morelia vs Veracruz Predictions

Saturday’s Liga MX Clausura action sees Monarcas Morelia doing battle with Veracruz. The hosts will be looking to finally get off the mark, having lost their opening two Clausura matches.

Monarcas Morelia missed out on a playoff spot by a single point in the Apertura phase of the season and having now fell to defeat in their opening two in the Clausura, they’ll be playing catch up in the race for a place in the top 8. Defeats at home to Toluca and away to Santos Laguna rank as a very poor start for the hosts, meaning they’ll be desperate for improvement on Saturday.

Ultimately, whilst Morelia will be disappointed with their recent showings, the aforementioned opponents they’ve faced are strong sides and this fixture will look a far more winnable one to them, particularly given they’ve won their last 2 home games and 4 of their last 6 matches overall against Veracruz.

Meanwhile, if confidence levels in home ranks can be described as being low, then they simply have to be regarded as being at rock bottom in the visiting camp. A 1-0 home defeat to Lobos BUAP last weekend in a crunch relegation clash now has Los Tiburones Rojos looking almost certain to be playing Ascenso MX football next season.

Bottom and looking well adrift in the average points table used for relegation, having not won in 12 straight league matches and having looked the divsion’s weakest outfit for such a sustained period, Veracruz really do appear to be a lost cause. If they are to pull off a miraculous escape, they need to start picking up results but having lost 12 of their last 16 away games, any run of form is unlikely to start in Saturday’s clash.

Ultimately, Monarcas are a better team than their last couple of results would suggest and this is a fixture they have to be targeting maximum points in if they are to have any real playoff aspirations. Man for man, the hosts are the stronger of the two by quite some margin and it’ll be a huge surprise if that doesn’t translate into what we see over the 90 minutes.

As such, we’re more than happy to back a home win with maximum confidence. Veracruz are terrible on the road and given they’ve conceded a huge average of 2.37 goals a game over their last 16 away matches, they are unlikely to provide any kind of resistance and we believe the hosts will run out comfortable 2-0 winners.