Athletic Bilbao vs Barcelona Prediction and Football Tips – 23/08/15

Spanish La Liga football tips – Athletic Bilbao vs Barcelona prediction

Possible Line-ups

Athletic Bilbao: 4-4-1-1 formation: Iraizoz; Balenziaga, Laporte, Viguera, De Marcos; Benat, Jose, Merino, Susaeta; Eraso; Aduriz

Athletic will be hoping that a combination of Aduriz continuing his fine form in front of goal, the continued emergence of Laporte as one of the top centre backs in the league and Benat’s ability to dictate the game that they will be able to secure at least a point to begin their 2015/16 campaign.

Barcelona: 4-3-3 formation: Bravo; Alves, Bartra, Mascherano, Alba; Busquets, Rakitic, Iniesta; Rafinha, Suarez, Messi

Bravo will keep his place in between the sticks after Ter Stegen conceded 4 goals in his last match, Jordi Alba is back from injury and Bartra will replace Pique after he was banned for insulting the referee in the second leg of the Super Cup final.

Barcelona will be looking to exact revenge and begin their title defence with a win, they will hope that the combination of dominating possession and a team containing some of the best players in the world will be enough to secure the 3 points.

• Barcelona have won 4, drawn 3 and lost 3 of their last 10 matches
• Athletic Bilbao have won 3, drawn 4 and lost 3 of their last 10 matches
• Over the course of their previous 10 matches, Barcelona have scored an average of 2 goals and conceded an average of 1.9 goals per game
• Over the course of their previous 10 matches, Athletic Bilbao have scored an average of 1.3 goals and conceded an average of 1 goal per game
• There have been over 2.5 goals scored in 9 of 10 of Barcelonas’ previous 10 matches
• There have been over 2.5 goals scored in only 2 of Athletic Bilbao’s previous 10 matches
• The Last meeting was the Second leg of the Spanish Super cup final, with Bilbao surprisingly securing a 1-1 draw with the European Champions at the Camp Nou to finish with an aggregate 5-1 victory over the Catalans

Barcelona won the treble last season and with their terrifying front three of Neymar, Suarez and Messi tearing up the world of football, they will hope to achieve a similar level of success this campaign especially after adding Arda Turan and Aliex Vidal with the former likely to replace the UEFA super cup winning goalscorer Pedro who has recently moved to Chelsea and they will be looking to exact revenge on Bilbao having recently lost the Spanish super cup to them.

Athletic Bilbao have always been a well known, respected club within the BBVA. Achieving success considering they are only allowed to sign players from the Basque region, especially seeing the emphasis the most successful clubs in Europe place on employing talent from other countries, having recently secured a 5-1 aggregate win over a strong Barcelona side in the Spanish super cup final they will be confident going into this game.

We say: Draw and both teams to score at 9/2 with Bet365

What are your predictions?