Barcelona is hosting Levante at Camp Nou in round 7 of the Spanish LaLiga. Barcelona is struggling right now, they are not scoring goals, and their defense is playing catch-up. Levante is even worse than Barcelona, they are still without a win this season, and they are not scoring goals as well.
Barcelona hasn’t won any of their last 3 games while scoring only 1 goal in those 3 games, and their situation is far from good. Overall, Barcelona is still undefeated this season, but they are in 8th place with only 9 points, and they are now 7 points away from Real Madrid at the top. Barcelona is playing against Benfica in the Champions League next week, and their terrible form has come at the wrong time. In their last game against Cadiz on the road, Barcelona was the dominant team with 68% of ball possession, 2 shots on goal, 5 corner kicks, 2 big chances created, and 86% of the correct passes. The dominance is futile if you can’t score a goal, and that is what happened for Barcelona here. The final score of this match was 0-0. I think Koeman will get fired soon, and that is the right decision because he has lost the support from players, and that is an important thing.
Levante has 4 draws and 2 losses so far this season, and they are in 16th place with 4 points, 6 scored goals, and 9 conceded goals. For a team without a win this season, Levante hasn’t conceded many goals, but when your offense is not producing, even that is a lot. Levante hasn’t won any of their last 7 games, and they haven’t had a good time against Celta. Levante has had 45% of ball possession in that game, 2 shots on goal, 2 corner kicks, 2 big chances created, and 72% of the correct passes. Once again, Levante’s offense hasn’t been producing, while their defense just couldn’t handle the pressure, and Levante has lost this game 0-2. Marti and Morales have each scored 2 goals for Levante so far this season. Melero has added 2 assists. The injury list is quite long for Levante, and some of their best players are on it. Levante will have a long and hard season, but at least their expectations are not high as Barcelona’s are.
Barcelona hasn’t lost in their last 16 home games against Levante, but this one will not be easy. I’m not eager to lay a lot of money on Barcelona, but because Levante is not scoring a lot, I think Barcelona will be able to defend well.