Real Sociedad vs Athletic Bilbao Betting Tips

Last season’s meetings were fairly typical of this fixture, both ending in 1-1 draws with neither side really doing enough to win. They were two passionate games, but lacking a bit in quality and neither match ended with 22 players still on the pitch.

These two clubs have had a similar kind of problems over the past 18 months and that is inconsistency and that is certainly how this season has started too.

Real Sociedad were fairly awful in the first few weeks, scoring in only 1 of their first 4 fixtures and picking up just 2 points. However almost out of nowhere on Tuesday they were thumping 3-0 winners at Granada thanks to a hat-trick from Imanol Agirretxe. The loyal attacker, who has spent his whole career at Sociedad is a veteran of Basque derbies so his return to form is timely but it may be a little premature to say that David Moyes’ side are back after just 1 win victory.

Athletic Bilbao ended last season strongly and were brilliant against Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup. However they have lost 4 of their opening 5 games in La Liga and that included a 2-0 defeat away to the division’s other Basque club Eibar.

They are still missing a number of key players and perhaps are struggling a bit with fatigue having had to name a similar side throughout a busy early season schedule including Europa League qualifying rounds as well as the Super Cup.

Real Sociedad will come into the game on the back of an enormous boost with that convincing win in midweek and also have the better record in recent Basque Derbies given they are unbeaten in 6 matches against Athletic, winning 3 of them.

At 6/4 they are good value to win this game and continue that run here and in doing so pile real pressure on Athletic Bilbao, who could well fall into the bottom three.

With the exception of 50 minutes against Espanyol when they were down to 10 men, Real Sociedad have been very strong at the back this season and they’ve scored 5 times in their last 2 games to end the goal drought. With more confidence running through them, they look decent value at 10/1 for a 3rd 2-0 home win against Athletic in the space of 4 years.