📏 Form Guide

Espanyol

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Espanyol will be looking for an improved result here following the 3-2 La Liga losing effort in their last game against Leganés.

In that game, Espanyol managed 50% possession and 12 shots at goal with 6 on target. For Espanyol, the goalscorers were Marash Kumbulla (63' Own goal), Leandro Cabrera (79') and Pere Milla (98'). At the other end, Leganes had 13 attempts at goal with 5 on target. Seydouba Cissé (33') and Yan Diomande (41') scored for Leganés.

In their last 6 fixtures, Manolo González's Espanyol have netted a total of 7 times resulting in an average number of goals scored per match equal to 1.17.

Heading into this contest, Espanyol have not beaten Barcelona in their previous 27 matches in the league. That has got to hurt.

Barcelona

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Barcelona will go into this game following a 4-3 La Liga win against Real Madrid in their last game.

In that match, Barcelona had 62% possession and 23 shots at goal with 9 on target. For Barcelona, the scorers were Eric García (19'), Lamine Yamal (32') and Raphinha (34', 45'). Real Madrid had 9 shots at goal with 5 of them on target. Kylian Mbappé (5', 14', 70') was the scorer for Real Madrid.

Barcelona have had no problems opening up opposition defences of late, having scored 16 times in their previous 6 matches. This doesn’t mask the fact that Barcelona can also improve defensively after being scored against in 5 of those same outings.

Their past results show that Barcelona:

• remain unbeaten by Espanyol in away games against them for the last 15 league matches. An incredible run.
• are undefeated in their previous 9 away league matches. Impressive, to say the least.

👥 Head to head

A review of their past head to head meetings going back to 08/07/2020 shows that these fixtures have ended in disappointment for Espanyol. They have not been able to come away with any victories at all whereas Barcelona have managed to find a way, winning in 67% of those games played.

A total of 18 goals were scored between the two sides in this period, with 6 of them from Periquitos and 12 being from Barça. That is an average goals per game value of 3.

The previous league encounter featuring these sides was La Liga match day 12 on 03/11/2024 which ended up with the score at Barcelona 3-1 Espanyol.

In that match, Barcelona managed 77% possession and 13 attempts on goal with 9 of them on target. The goals were scored by Dani Olmo (12', 31') and Raphinha (23').

At the other end, Espanyol had 10 attempts at goal with 3 on target. Javi Puado (63') scored.

The match was refereed by José Luis Munuera Montero.

📰 Team News: Espanyol

We are thinking that Periquitos may well line up in a 4-2-3-1 system for this game featuring Joan Garcia, Omar El Hilali, Marash Kumbulla, Leandro Cabrera, Carlos Romero, Pol Lozano, Urko Gonzalez, Antoniu Roca, Edu Exposito, Javier Puado and Roberto Fernandez.

ℹ️ Team News: Barcelona

Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has to contend with a number of unavailable players. Ferran Torres (Appendicitis), Jules Koundé (Hamstring injury) and Marc Bernal (Cruciate ligament tear) miss out here.

We reckon that Barça seem likely to play in a 4-2-3-1 lineup using Wojciech Szczesny, Eric Garcia, Ronald Araujo, Andreas Christensen, Gerard Martin, Frenkie de Jong, Pedri, Lamine Yamal, Dani Olmo, Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski.

🔮 Prediction

We feel that in this game, Espanyol have the ability to score against this Barcelona side, however a single goal may not quite prevent defeat.

We’re therefore expecting both teams to score in a 1-2 winning margin for Barcelona at full-time. We’ll have to see what happens.

Renata Leite, 19:02 15/05/2025