Sevilla vs Valencia

Valencia are last. One point from four La Liga matches (W0 D1 L3), one goal scored, nine conceded, and a 0-5 home evisceration by Barcelona last weekend in which they managed three shots to twenty-five. Carlos Corberan has a squad that defends deep and creates almost nothing: 1.03 xG per game across those four matches, and three of the four ended with a blank next to their name. Two weeks into September, this is already a relegation-shaped season.

Sevilla are seventh with seven points from four (W2 D1 L1) and a far messier profile than that suggests. Luis Garcia's side have kept no clean sheets in four league matches, conceded six, and been behind at the break in both games at the Sanchez-Pizjuan, losing 1-3 to Atletico Madrid and needing a second-half turnaround to beat Rayo Vallecano 2-1. Their away form has carried them: a 3-1 win at Athletic Club, a 1-1 draw at Espanyol that finished with a red card. Sevilla score and concede in roughly equal measure, which is why a 2.29 price against the bottom club is not the mispricing it looks like.

The fixture itself argues for caution. Eight competitive meetings, and Sevilla have won one of them. Valencia have won three, four have been drawn, and the last visit here ended 0-2 to Valencia in March. Both teams have five days' rest and neither played midweek, so this is a straight test of a mediocre home side against a bad away one.

One number frames this match: Valencia have scored once in four La Liga matches. Not once per game. Once. They failed to score in three of the four, and the goal they did get came in a 1-3 defeat at Deportivo La Coruna. Their xG says the drought is not pure misfortune but close to it: 1.03 per game, which is bad rather than catastrophic, against a return of 0.25 goals per game.

Sevilla are the opposite kind of unreliable. Both teams have scored in all four of their league matches and three of the four went over 2.5 goals, but they have also conceded 1.50 per game and trailed at half-time twice in four. At home they have shipped four goals in two matches. So the route to a Sevilla win is obvious and the route to a clean sheet is not.

The head-to-head pulls the total down hard. Eight league meetings, 1.75 goals per meeting, and only one of the eight went over 2.5. Both sides scored in four of the eight. Put a striker-less Valencia into a fixture that historically strangles itself and the under looks like the side of the market with the evidence.

Sevilla's matches are loud. Their four La Liga games this season have produced 6.8 cards each, against a league average of 4.79, and every one of the four cleared 3.5. Four of those cards per match have been Sevilla's own, and two of the four games ended with a red for one side or the other, including last weekend at Espanyol.

Valencia are the quieter half of this. Their four league matches have averaged 4.0 cards, with only 1.5 going to Valencia players. But a bottom club chasing the ball at the Sanchez-Pizjuan is a card-generating machine, and Sevilla's own rate does not depend on the opponent. Add Sevilla's 4.0 per match to Valencia's 1.5 and the honest expectation is somewhere near five and a half.

Neither side wins corners. Sevilla's four La Liga matches have produced 6.5 corners in total per game, Valencia's 7.0, against a league running at 9.95. Sevilla take 3.0 a game and concede 3.5; Valencia take 3.8 and concede 3.2. Only one of Sevilla's four league matches has gone past 9.5, and two of Valencia's.

The shape of the game reinforces it. Valencia sit deep and clear long rather than working the ball into wide areas, and Sevilla have averaged 11.5 shots a game with 46% possession in their league matches, which is not a side laying siege to a box. Even the corner-heavy scenario here, Sevilla pushing at a massed defence for an hour, has to start from 6.5 and 7.0.