Sporting Gijón v Sevilla Preview – Sunday 3pm GolTV

By: Anthony | February 1st, 2009

After our last-minute winner at Valencia during the week, we now put the Copa del Rey to the side for a bit and focus on our struggles – in the league.

With out loss last week at home to Racing, we sit a significant number of points behind Barça, obviously no one is catching them this season.

We travel to El Molinon in Gijón to take on a Sporting side that has also been struggling of late. Last weekend they got smashed by Getafe 5-1 and midweek they were knocked out of the Copa del Rey, not exactly the best week for them.

The original fixture against Sporting which was played in Sevilla was a goal fest with us just edging them out 4-3 with many nervous moments to say the least. Mate Bilic was their star performer in that game with a hat-trick to his name and he’ll definitely be one of their key players, especially when they’re at home. But despite the Croatian’s heroics once again Kanouté came out on top like so many times this season already, with the winning goal.

Because of our slip-up last week against the boys from Santander we now sit 6 points back of Real with one game in hand and a win tomorrow would see us narrow that margin by three points.

We’ve only allowed 18 goals this season, the second best defensive record in the league, and although the results of late have been questionable, our defense hasn’t, which is always a good sign.

Of course for tomorrow both Acosta and Fazio are still out with their long-term injuries and Luis Fabiano is out with the injury he picked up against Valencia leaving us pretty short up front. Konko and Mosquera have resumed full training but are unlikely to play tomorrow as they have still not fully recovered. Kanouté picked up a slight knock in training and will be a game time decision to whether he plays or not.

Due to all these injuries both Cordero and new boy José Carlos have been called up from Sevilla Atlético to fill the gaps in defense and midfield and although they are not likely to start, they may get a run out depending on the score.

Sporting are averaging almost 4 goals against per every match this season, a La Liga worst, and hopefully we can exploit that when we look to get our season back on track.

Knowing us, we’ll manage to make this match, one we should absolutely dominate, probably too close for comfort and just scrape out the victory. I predict 2-0 with goals from Chevantón who may be our only striker and Romaric who has been settling into the lineup nicely of late.