Storylines to Follow in La Liga This Weekend of Feb. 13-16
La Liga continues to have plenty of excitement surrounding its matches as it moves toward the final three months of the season.
With races for the title, European spots and to avoid relegation all hotting up, the forthcoming round of games should provide plenty of intrigue and things to watch out for, as well as the technical excellence and buckets of goals we have come to expect.
Here are our major storylines to watch out for as the games unfold between Friday night and Monday.
Real Trying to Recover Against an in-Form Depor
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Real Madrid were battered by Atletico Madrid last time out, and the fallout has been a week-long affair.
The best thing for Real is simply to get back to action and try to get themselves back into a winning habit, which they have the chance to do against Deportivo La Coruna this weekend—the first league opponents they played last time after losing to Atleti, which sparked a 22-match winning run.
It's a different proposition this time, though; Depor were near the bottom then but are full of confidence now, having moved up to 11th after a great recent run of form. With Fabricio, new signing Celso Borges and others in form, Carlo Ancelotti has to find the formula to get his underperforming front players somewhere back to their best for Real.
Expecting La Goleada at Camp Nou
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Barcelona have been in tremendous goalscoring form of late, with the Suarez-Neymar-Messi front line working a treat and taking all before them by storm.
Their last five league games, all wins, have yielded 21 goals for the Catalan club—and don't expect that average to wane this coming weekend, as they face Levante at home. Levante, in the drop zone after one win in 10, have already conceded 38 goals this season—the third-worst total in the top flight.
Levante have only scored 17 times—only one more than Neymar, and six fewer than Lionel Messi. With those two, as well as Luis Suarez and Pedro, all finding the net with regularity lately, la goleada—the rout, the win by a landslide margin—could be seen at Camp Nou this weekend.
Villarreal's Forward Line Rotation
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Villarreal have a pretty settled lineup most weeks, a strong starting group of 12 or 14 players who have taken them to the fringes of the Champions League places this term. They currently sit sixth, three points behind Valencia in fourth.
Last time out, though, Marcelinho opted to rotate parts of his team at home against bottom club Granada, with the likes of Denis Cheryshev, Luciano Vietto, Jonathan dos Santos and Giovani dos Santos all left out. Instead, Ikechukwu Uche was partnered up front by the impressive (and goalscoring) Gerard Moreno, while Moi Gomez did well on one flank and Joel Campbell made his full debut on the other.
It showed the great depth Villarreal now have at their disposal and that they can call upon others from the bench to change games if needed.
You'd expect Denis and Vietto in particular to return to the XI away to Rayo Vallecano, but Rayo are well out of form and it's another winnable match for the top-four hopefuls. Seeing Moreno and Vietto paired in attack is an exciting prospect if the manager leans that way.
Could We See a Gap Finally Start to Develop at the Bottom?
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All season long, we've been seeing teams at the foot of the table look as though they are going to be cut adrift—then suddenly pull a couple of results out of the bag to lift themselves off the foot of the table and out of the drop zone.
We've mentioned Depor already, but Athletic Bilbao were also down there early on. Almeria and Elche have more recently been stranded at the foot, while the bottom three is now Levante, Cordoba and Granada, all low scorers and with the fewest wins in the league this season.
This weekend is a totally key one: The bottom three all face tough games (Barcelona, Sevilla and Athletic Bilbao respectively) in which it won't take a miracle for them to lose, while Elche, in 17th, face eighth-placed Eibar, who haven't won in four.
If Elche take points there and Almeria manage something against Real Sociedad at home, we could suddenly be looking at a five-point gap between those in the relegation zone and those on the side of safety—a quite significant gap as the matches left in the campaign reaches the 15 mark.
David Moyes' Poor Win Record
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Real Sociedad are more difficult to beat, better in defence and generally look more organised than they were earlier in the season, but it doesn't change the fact that David Moyes has so far been able to manage only three wins from 11 games—against Elche, Barcelona and Eibar.
Obviously, there's a bit of a standout there in terms of opposition, but the other two wins came against pretty low-key clubs. Nobody else of repute or in danger of achieving anything like a positive season have been beaten by La Real under Moyes, and they currently sit 12th.
That sounds fairly comfortable, but it's actually in the middle of a group who are all scrapping to pull away from the relegation zone, as noted in the previous slide. At present, three points separate 10th to 16th.
A couple more wins, and Real (or one of the others) will be at the top of that group, looking at the top half and feeling smug. A couple more defeats, and the dotted line looks very close, very quickly. This weekend is Almeria for Moyes and Co., who are four places, but just one point, below La Real.
Sevilla's Switch to Two Forwards
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We finish up with a look at a the top-four race, where we've mentioned Villarreal already. Valencia play at home to Getafe—a winnable match, though not without difficulties—while Sevilla face Cordoba at home, which they should win comfortably.
Valencia have switched tactics and personnel often under Nuno, but Sevilla have been far more settled, operating in a standard 4-2-3-1 for almost the entire season—that is until the past couple of weeks.
After Iago Aspas produced a match-winning effect recently, they switched to pair Aspas and Carlos Bacca together up front last time out, resulting in a two-pronged attack that lacked width and penetration behind it; both forwards were subbed off and Sevilla lost, 2-1, to Getafe.
It has been a long time since Sevilla really fielded two centre-forwards together, so it's a big decision for Unai Emery about whether to persist with that strategy or to switch back to the tried and tested, if lacking in surprise or killer instinct, 4-2-3-1.
