Covid again.

Atletico are deservedly on top of the league, but they have overachieved their xG strongly at both ends of the pitch.

It is no wonder as they have Jan Oblak in goal to ridicule any goal expectations of the opponent, and Luis Suarez scoring for fun in the attack and he seems to be in the form of his life now also shooting beautiful freekicks from the distance.

When Celta were on their best I did like them a lot, Tapia is a defensive monster, Nolito and Iago Aspas worked wonders in the attack, and now they have all returned although the return game away at Granada was a bit shy of good scoring opportunities.

Betting against Atletico at home feels like a foolish thing to do with their numbers and performances, but now I am hopeful - well more like afraid - that there are even more covid cases in the squad than already published. The local papers are expected to confirm two more cases today, Thomas Lemar and Hector Herrera.

They already miss Trippier from the right side which is a huge blow on its own, last week there were 4 covid cases in Hermoso, Carrasco, Felix and Dembele. I have discussed Hermoso earlier, he is defensively solid, but also another key part of Atletico's build of play.

What Atletico can not afford today would be any of Oblak, Suarez, Koke, or any of the remaining defenders to be out!

As the results below show Atletico have been ridiculously good in La Liga,

but they have also conceded 4 goals in their last 3 games, vs bottom half sides!

Celta did have a slump of results when their key men were out, there is no way to replace Tapia and Aspas, or Suarez from their squad but they are all available now. It feels silly to back them with these results and performances they have lately, but they are a rested team with enough collective and individual class to challenge anyone on a good day. What I am more interested in is if they can reproduce the excellent form which all ended with injuries in the Real Madrid game. Before that game they were 5-1-0, and they had won the performances clearly vs all opponents, and were a pure joy to watch!

It is to be noticed as well that even if Atletico are 9-1-0 at home in the actual table with a massive 24-3 goal difference, it does not seem completely fair with the xG-data which would give them only 19 points, and a 16-8 goal difference. They would be only 5th best home team if the results had shaped like that!

Yes, I know, this is risky, and there is a chance that I feel very stupid over this over the New Years period. However the covid news are real, the team stopped training and are waiting for the confirmed news.

Too bad covid messes up with games and our lives, but at least it makes this game worth another thought!

X2

本译文使用有道机器翻译，仅供参考：

又是新冠！

马竞当之无愧地在联赛中名列前茅，但是他们在攻防两端的表现都超出了他们的预期。

毫无疑问，他们有扬·奥布拉克在球门嘲笑对手的任何进球期望，路易斯·苏亚雷斯在进攻中以进球为乐，他似乎在他的生活的形式现在也可以从远处踢漂亮的任意球。

当塞尔塔处于最佳状态时，我非常喜欢他们，塔皮亚是一个防守怪兽，诺利托和伊阿古·阿斯帕斯在进攻方面发挥了奇迹，现在他们都回归了，尽管在对阵格拉纳达的比赛中他们有点缺少好的得分机会。

在主场赌马竞输掉比赛感觉是一件愚蠢的事情，但现在我希望——更像是害怕——球队中的新冠肺炎病例比已经公布的要多。当地报纸预计今天将证实另外两个病例，托马斯·勒马和赫克托尔·埃雷拉。

他们已经错过了右侧的特里皮耶，这本身就是一个巨大的打击，上周Hermoso, Carrasco, Felix和Dembele有4个新冠肺炎病例。我之前已经讨论过埃莫索，他的防守很稳固，也是马竞的另一个关键组成部分。

今天的马竞无法承受的是奥布拉克、苏亚雷斯、科克，或者任何剩下的后卫出局!

下面的结果显示，马竞在西甲的表现非常出色，

但是他们在过去的3场比赛中也丢了4个球，对阵下半区球队!

塞尔塔在关键球员缺阵的时候确实表现不佳，没有办法替代塔皮亚、阿斯帕斯和苏亚雷斯，但他们现在都可以上场了。用他们最近取得的成绩和表现来支持他们，感觉有点傻，但他们是一支休息良好的队伍，有足够的集体和个人级别来挑战任何人。我更感兴趣的是他们是否能重现在与皇家马德里的比赛中以伤病结束的那种出色状态。在那场比赛之前，他们的比分是5-1-0，而且他们在与所有对手的比赛中都取得了明显的胜利，观看比赛是一种纯粹的快乐!

同样值得注意的是，即使马竞主场9胜1负，在实际积分榜上有24-3个球的巨大差距，但从xg的数据来看，他们只有19分，16-8个球的差距似乎并不完全公平。如果结果是这样的话，他们只会是第五名。

是的，我知道，这很冒险，而且在新年期间，我可能会觉得自己很愚蠢。然而，新冠肺炎的消息是真实的，球队停止了训练，等待确认的消息。

看好塞尔塔不败。