Athletic Club vs Valencia Preview

Valencia will look to win their first game of the season when they travel to the Estadio San Mamés to face Athletic Club in their third league game of the season.

Like their visitors, Bilbao are yet to record a win this season. After opening their campaign with a 1-1 draw with Getafe, the hosts were beaten by Barcelona in their most recent game.

Despite the disappointing results, boss Ernesto Valverde remained upbeat, stating his team are “doing well”. Perhaps misfortune has also played a part, with Athletic being forced to use third-string goalkeeper Álex Padilla at the Camp Nou after minor injuries to Unai Simón and Julen Agirrezabala.

Valverde will hope to have one of the two available here as Athletic bids to avoid two successive league defeats for the first time since May 2023. Bilbao fans will be confident that their side can get a good result here given their imperious home league form in recent times. The Basque club has not tasted a La Liga defeat at home in over 12 months (W12, D7).

Meanwhile, Valencia have lost their opening two games this season, falling to a 2-1 defeat to Barcelona in their opening game before losing 3-1 to Celta Vigo last time. Those pair of losses made it nine league matches without a victory for the visitors (D2, L7).

Head coach Rubén Baraja will be desperate to avoid another poor result as his side attempts to win just their second game against Athletic Bilbao in the last five head-to-head meetings between them. However, Los Ches’ form last term away to sides of Athletic’s quality will add to fears that their recent slide could be set to continue. Valencia went the whole league campaign without winning on their travels against any team who also finished inside the top ten as Athletic did (D1, L8).

Other fixtures taking place this week in the Spanish Primera Liga:

Spanish Primera Liga Table