Barcelona have not beaten Villarreal at home in the last three seasons, losing 2-1 in 2007/2008, drawing 3-3 in 2008/2009 and drawing 1-1 last season. In fact, Villarreal were the only team in La Liga last season to avoid defeat at Camp Nou last season.
It does seem that Villarreal are a bit of a bogey team for Barcelona. However, they did win away at Villarreal 4-1 in May.
Both sides have featured in only one picklive match this season. Barcelona had a freak 1-0 defeat at home to Hercules at the start of the season and Villareal won 2-0 against Atletico at home.
Barcelona are probably the best team for accumulating picklive points with the way they play and the large amount of possession they always seems to have. My debut picklive match was Barcelona-Arsenal. I remember predominately picking Xavi, Iniesta and Messi – a tactic that seemed to work! Xavi is the best picklive player, he averaged 98 points in the 7 games he played for Spain in the summer – hence the ‘Xavi rule!’ Iniesta is another high-scoring picklive player and should feature in all BG teams. Busquets usually does well as the holding midfielder. Messi has scored at least once in six of Barcelona’s last 7 matches in all competitions so it would be hard to leave him out of the side. Dani Alves likes to go forward and would be a good alternetive to Messi if you don’t think there will be many goals. Pique and Milito are out so Abidal or a player from Barca B will partner Puyol on his 500th Barcelona match.
Villareal players scored well in their single picklive match this season. Cazorla topscored with an impressive 84. Cani got 80 but helped with a goal and an assist. Bruno (77) and A Lopez (69) also broke the 60pts barrier. Don’t think Cazorla/Cani the wingers will do so well tonight. Bruno or A Lopez might be the better picks. Centre-backs (Marchena / Gonzalez) could do ok as well.
There seems to be plenty of goals though in Barcelona-Villarreal matches with 23 goals in the last six (3.8 per match). Barcelona have scored 12 goals in their last four matches and Villarreal 9 in their last four. There should be quite a few goals tonight and I would recommend going with a fairly attacking-minded BG team. Only Ronaldo (11) has scored more goals than Messi (8) and Rossi (7) in La Liga. Nilmar is also having a good season with six goals. David Villa has five goals to his name this season. Although Rossi and Nilmar are in decent form, I can’t see them scoring many points. Rossi had only 42pts against Atletico with a goal! Messi should be included and Villa if you think there will be a few goals.
I will be going with four Barcelona players. Most likely Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and Messi – I think a lot of people will go for these four on the BG though. Maybe going for David Villa could give you an edge if it’s a free-scoring match and Alves would be a solid pick. For my Villarreal player it’s going to be between Bruno, A Lopez, Marchena and Gonzalez!
All the best!
Grunny27 (Simon G)
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