La Liga Tips: Can Atletico keep the title race alive v Barcelona?

Barcelona conceded ground in the La Liga title race with a 4-4 draw against Villarreal at El Madrigal in midweek. Now they face closest rivals Atletico Madrid in a crunch clash at Camp Nou.

Diego Simeone’s men are eight points behind the Catalan club with eight games to go. That would shorten to five with victory on Saturday and also give them a huge psychological edge.

Which way will it go? We’ve tipped up the clash along with two other standout fixtures in a huge Saturday of La Liga action.   

Barcelona v Atletico Madrid (7:45pm)

There’s no escaping just how big a match this is. A Barcelona win would put them 11 points clear at the top and see their title odds shorten further. An Atletico victory means the title race is back on.

Our traders have Barca down as the 4/5 favourites against 17/5 for Atletico. Although whatever the outcome we’re expecting things to be tight.

Three of the last seven meetings have been decided by a single goal while the remaining four ended all-square at 1-1. We go 13/5 about the stalemate and 6/1 for a repeat scoreline once again.

Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez both have a decent record in this fixture while the little Argentine has nine goals in his last five matches. He’s 9/4 to Score First or 7/2 to bag 2 or More here.

Keep an eye on the booking points too. There have been at least four cards dished out in each of the last 19 iterations of this fixture dating back to 2014.

Real Madrid v Eibar (3:15pm)

Zinedine Zidane isn’t finding things quite so easy in his second spell as Real manager. Zizou won his first match back comfortably before struggling past Huesca and losing to Valencia in midweek.

This could be tough too. Eibar are La Liga’s draw specialists with nine in their last 16 matches in the Spanish top-flight. Don’t forget they beat Los Blancos 3-0 earlier in the season too.

We like the draw at 19/4, with a 2-2 scoreline at 16/1. Both Teams to Score is priced at 6/10, while the visitors are 13/5 to take the lead in the contest against beleaguered Real.

Rayo Vallecano v Valencia (5:30pm, ITV4)

These sides couldn’t be in more contrasting form. Rayo have lost eight of their last nine matches, while Champions League hunting Valencia are unbeaten in 17 in all competitions.

That should lend itself to a comfortable away win at even-money, with the visitors priced at 2/1 to Win with Over 2.5 Goals in the match. The hosts do at least tend to score in their matches.

They’ve netted in all bar one fixture in their current torrid run. Our traders go 14/5 about Valencia to Win and Both Teams to Score on Saturday evening.

Click here for the latest La Liga odds

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.