Weekend Football Betting Tips: Best Bets from Matchday 28 in La Liga

Mixed results for our Spanish Football expert Mark Sochon last week in his Weekend Football Betting Tips column from La Liga, where he picks out his best three bets of the matchday. A 5/4 winner in Sevilla vs Real Sociedad was certainly his highlight.

He has three games from three different days as he previews Matchday 28 for us right here at Betfred Insights...

It’s matchday 28 in La Liga, following on from a weekend of shocks and surprises with just one of the top eight and none of the top three victorious last time out.

With many of the stronger teams struggling for form, there’s encouragement for a host of relegation-threatened sides as they bid to upset the odds over the next few days.

Valencia vs Getafe (Saturday 13:00)

With eight red cards in the last six meetings, including three in an ill-tempered Second Half earlier this season, Valencia and Getafe have developed an unlikely rivalry. Much of that centres around current Getafe boss Pepe Bordalas who swapped the Coliseum for Mestalla in 2021, only to return to his old club last year.

Bordalas has plenty of selection headaches heading into this weekend. His side was involved in an unexpected 3-3 draw against Las Palmas last weekend and while it’d be a stretch to call them an entertaining side, they have been a bit more expansive than their direct, defensive reputation might suggest.

However, we may well see Getafe revert to type in this game with their two best attacking players unavailable. Top scorer Borja Mayoral was pushing Jude Bellingham close in the race to be La Liga’s top goalscorer but the 15-goal striker could miss the rest of the season with an injury sustained last weekend. To make matters worse here, Mason Greenwood is suspended and having sold Enes Unal to Bournemouth in January, Getafe are not blessed with a great deal of attacking depth to cover for that.

We may see the visitors set up in quite a defensive fashion as a result and the onus will be on Valencia to break them down. They did a good job of opening up Real Madrid last weekend, racing into a two goal lead, before surviving a late rally from Los Blancos to take a decent point.

Mestalla has been a happy home for them this season which certainly hasn’t always been the case in recent years. The Valencia fans remain desperate for owner Peter Lim to leave the club, but they’ve mostly put aside their anger to support a young team, led by a club legend in the shape of Ruben Baraja.

Los Che have won over half of their home league games this season and against a Getafe side that’s missing maybe their best two players, I’m backing Valencia to Win at Evens.

Alaves vs Rayo Vallecano (Sunday 13:00)

This is unlikely to be the most watchable of games between two out of form teams who are struggling to put the ball in the net, but it’s an important match, particularly for the visitors.

Recently appointed Rayo boss Iñigo Perez was dealt a real baptism of fire with the top two of Real Madrid and Girona his first two opponents. He’d probably have been content with one point

from those games but would have been hoping for more than the 1-1 draw they got at home to Cadiz last time out.

That match was played out in atrocious conditions in Madrid with a hailstorm forcing a brief delay to the game at one point, so it’s still too early to draw any real conclusions about Perez who served as Andoni Iraola’s assistant at the club last season.

Rayo’s main problem has been turning chances into goals and they’d be doing much better had one of their strikers enjoyed a more convincing campaign. Their football hasn’t been terrible though and they’re often better away than at home with four of their five league victories coming on the road. They’ve also only lost one of six away to current bottom half sides.

That bodes well for their chances of getting something against Alaves who are currently 13th but with a significant ten point advantage on the relegation zone. The Basque side’s boss Luis Garcia has been clear since day one that survival was their only real goal this season and they seem content enough to keep accumulating points as they edge closer to that target.

Alaves are winless in five league games but they’ve drawn three of those. All of their last four games have been tight affairs with two or fewer goals and they are a bit too dependent on young striker Samu Omorodion when it comes to their attacking threat. He’s an exciting player but has been a bit inconsistent and could do with some help from his teammates in the final third of the pitch.

Overall, I think the visitors have a good chance of getting a result from what’s likely to be a tight game so I’m using the #PickYourPunt builder to back Under 3.5 Goals and Double Chance - Rayo Vallecano or Draw at Evens.

Almeria vs Sevilla (Monday 20:00)

There’s an Andalusian derby between Almeria and Sevilla to round off the matchday, although with 250 miles separating the two cities in Spain’s largest region, there might not be too many visiting fans making the journey for this Monday night meeting of two bottom half sides.

There are finally some reasons for Sevilla supporters to be more positive though. They’ve won three of their last five to ease their relegation concerns and they’ve taken a couple of major scalps during that period too with Atlético Madrid and Real Sociedad both defeated at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan.

They should have few more players available by the time Monday rolls around which should enable Quique Sanchez Flores to name something very close to his best eleven. While it took a bit of time for the 59-year-old to stamp his mark on this team, we have seen improvements at both ends of the pitch over the past month.

Defensively they’re looking much more solid with a rigid 3-5-2 system and they’ll fancy they can shut out an Almeria side that has played better football this season than their woeful winless record suggests, but lacks a convincing number nine with striker Luis Suarez still injured.

Almeria weren’t great in Vigo last time out, failing to register a shot on target in a 1-0 defeat against one of the few teams they still retained a slim hope of catching. That result all but mathematically confirms that Almeria will be playing Segunda Division football next term.

Any kind of belief that may have been restored by stronger performances against the likes of Girona and Atletico Madrid will surely now have evaporated and they face a real battle just to avoid going down as the worst team in Spanish top flight history. With things looking a bit brighter all of a sudden from the away team’s perspective, I’m backing Sevilla to Win at 11/8.

You can check out Mark's La Liga Betting Tips along with those from the rest of the Betfred Insights Spanish Football writers on our La Liga home page...