Almeria vs Elche

Almeria host Elche for this Spanish LaLiga round 33 clash at Estadio de los Juegos Mediterráneos early Wednesday morning Beijing time. This is the second-best league on the planet. However, by LaLiga standards standards football enthusiasts and us football bettors can not realistically expect a particularly high-level game between these pretty lowly teams. However, my fans and I have done very well betting on this league and we have yet another very lucrative betting opportunity here. The key element analysing this match is motivation – and the lack of it. Almeria are massively motivated here! Indeed, they currently occupy the 16th place in this league with a total of 20 clubs. Teams that end up 18-20th are relegated to LaLiga2 for next season. Elche are the rock-bottom team and have lost all hope of avoiding relegation a long time ago already. They have just 16 points to their account – an incredibly low number! Yes, it is true that they would have deserved more points in terms of expected points (xPTS) but they are still a very bad team for this level. They are also a small team by financial resources and players total market value. According to a well-known and well-respected German website, Transfermarkt.com Elche's squad has a total market value of just 60.70 million euros. This is, in my view, still too high. The fair market value would be 50-53 million. Four of their players are over-valued. Almeria's players, on the other hand, are valued a total of 93.60 million which is still too low in my view. I would set the number at 105-108 million. Three players are under-valued. The biggest, often relatively smart bookies that offer the biggest betting limits offer Almeria odds of around 1.70-1.75 to send the visitors home empty-handed. However, I would not be at all surprised if the odds on the hosts were to go down before the kick off as smart money is expected to pile up on Almeria!

Based on my sophisticated, in-depth analysis that has dozens of variables, the hosts have a 65% chance to win. Elche are missing Alamo, Badia, Bigas, Carmona, Mascarelli and Palacious. The hosts will be without Kaiky, Svidersky and Toure. The defense has been abysmal this season; they have conceded 62 goals so far. Moreover, their number of expected goals allowed (xGA) is even higher 68.12! Their defense lacks structure, individual skill and the defenders also make way too many stupid mistakes. The midfielders should also be more active in defending. They are a very weak team on the road and have lost eight of their most recent 10 away games. They have lost six of their last seven matches, They did however, take a win a few days ago at home. They beat Rayo Vallecano 4-0. They did play surprisingly well but I also want to highlight that the visitors were, for some reason, very far from their best level in this game. Furthermore, Rayo's Lejeune was sent off in the 27th minute when the score was still 0-0. It seems this win affects the odds way too much in tonight's game! Yes, Elche did deserve to win but the final score is still very misleading. Elche only had 51% ball possession and the visitors recorded 14 scoring attempts - Elche's number was 18. The visitors also created more attacks and dangerous attacks. Elche did generate much more in expected goals though – 2.87-1.23. Almeri, on the other hand, lost to Real Madrid away from home 2-4 in their most recent match. Yes, Real, who were priced 1.13-1.15 on the betting market, did deserve to win but Almeria's performance was not bad. They recorded a respectable nine goal attempts. Before this they tool a fine win away from home over Getafe 2-1. They were big underdogs in this game - priced around 5.00 by the bookies to win. This was yet another example of the bookmakers undervaluing Almeria. They generated 1.93 in expected goals – the hosts' number was 1.48. Almeria also recorded many more goal attempts and shots on goal. Almeria have good fans and I expect them to offer a massive boost for the players in this match!