Sevilla vs Espanyol prediction: SPAIN: LaLiga betting tips on match 2023-05-03 17:30.
Sevilla continue to produce surprise results in both the domestic and continental arenas, this time to their detriment after a 2-0 La Liga (LL) loss at home to Girona dented their hopes of sneaking into contention for European football next season. Even if Real Madrid win the Copa del Rey final and seventh place subsequently enters the Europa Conference League play-off round, Sevilla have lost significant ground and now start this round six points shy of that mark.
Keeping their eyes trained on that prospect should ensure they donât fall into the trap of getting complacent against a lowly-ranked Espanyol side that are scrapping for their LL future. Sevilla have at least been fairly reliable when hosting clubs joining them in the bottom half of the standings at the start of this round, owning an unbeaten W5, D3 LL home record.
Just one week ago, a win against Espanyol would almost have been a near-certainty. The parrots seemingly had their wings clipped at the start of March, plummeting from 12th at the start of that month into the relegation zone with an eight-game winless run (D1, L7) that finally ended last weekend. Their 1-0 win at home saw them leapfrog direct competitors Getafe to 18th before the start of the midweek games, albeit thatâs not yet enough to achieve survival.
Following his maiden LL win as a manager from five attempts (D1, L3), Luis GarcĂa urged his players to enjoy the breakthrough with a whisky, but cautioned that they had merely âlaid the first stoneâ and âhave not done anythingâ to celebrate just yet. The next task is to earn just their second LL away win against a side above them in the standings at the end of last round (D5, L8), particularly if Espanyol donât want upcoming trips to AtlĂ©tico Madrid or Barcelona to become âmust winsâ.
Players to watch: Erik Lamela has played a goalscoring role in four competitive victories for Sevilla this season, including the reverse H2H and his second-previous home LL outing. Espanyolâs Joselu was also on the scoresheet in the previous meeting with Sevilla and needs one more goal to surpass his haul of 14 LL goals from last season.
Hot streak: The pre-match favourite on the day has failed to win Sevillaâs last seven competitive fixtures (D2, L5).