There is a sample below of one of today's clubgowi subscriber match previews, it includes some notes from last week as a reference point and therefore, gives you a look at a couple of typical match write ups and the format. There are likely to be 1,800 + match/event previews in 2016 and as you will see, they are written in such a way to give the reader as much information as possible, much of which is unique and often more that one option and alternative ways to "play" a game.

 

 

La Liga: Eibar- Granada

 

Lots of notes on these two clubs, preview of Eibar's Copa del Rey game with Las Palmas last midweek is reproduced at the foot of this email, that was another open, entertaining game, which ended 3-2 to the home side That leaves just La Liga for Eibar to concentrate on and they clearly have big ambitions (in relation to size of the club) and will be delighted that they have been able to bring back Jota (pictured), who was top scorer in their 2013-14 promotion season, on a loan deal from Championship club Brentford. This is a major boost for the hosts, it will greatly increase competition for starting places and give them far more options offensively. However, he has not played much football this season and will need time to get up to speed, so is not available for tonight, along with suspended centre back Aleksandar Pantic and injured central midfielder Gonzalo Escalante (missed 4 league and cup starts, through which they conceded at the rate of 2.25 goals per game).
 

Granada have also made the notes a lot recently, ahead of their away cup tie with Valencia the week before last I wrote ...........

Granada are buoyed by their 2-1 win over Sevilla on Sunday,but  they really rode their luck their at times, especially early in both halves and I think that back to back games against such strong opponents are a big ask with the very quick turnaround and for them, the additional issue of travel )they also played at Las Palmas last midweek) and with the early kick off , they would have had to make this journey yesterday. They have also left out four from the weekend squad, including both starting right sided midfielders. Survival has to be the priority for Granada and you would think it would be all about La Liga for them, however, they go to Barcelona on Saturday and might feel they have little chance there anyway and want to give this their best shot, but that could be very dangerous, especially if it back fired , they lost this anyway and left little in the tank for the weekend and the return with Valencia is next midweek, this is the third of seven games inside 26 days for the visitors and I would argue that this is the least important of all for Granada and I expect a reasonably comfortable win for the hosts. Valencia are 8-1-0 h2h2 in the series since Granada returned to the top flight, they are a perfect 5/5 at Mestalla, where they have also kept four clean sheets.

 

They lost that 4-0 , then, ahead of the return leg last Thursday ......
 

Valencia have traveled with a strong looking squad, but that changes little in my opinion and it is all about mindset and motivation and I suspect that GCF as the host will have more of the latter and the extra day before the next game is also important. Granada will be looking to build on that last home win over Sevilla and to start trying to make their home ground a bit of a fortress in the second half of the campaign. Valencia have alreday lost nine away games this season ( six in the league) and are not the same team away from Mestalla.

Granada again lost heavily, Valenca took the match fairly seriously and I wonder if they now regret that after dropping two points at home to Rayo Vallecano yesterday. Anyway, Granada have conceded 18 goals in six starts since the Christmas fixture and it really should have been more. The visitors arrive without Ruben Rochina and Javi Márquez and with miss both in the centre of the park, Rochina plays in the withdrawn striker role and has contributed to five goals this season, including scoring in the reverse fixture which Eibar won 3-1.
 

Granada have conceded a La Liga second highest number of goals before the break and Eibar have scored 63% of all their goals in the first half.
 

Last four Eibar games (all comps) have produced eight FH goals, Granada have conceded nine goals in the opening period in their last six outings (again, all comps) and we can again expect a bit of early excitement here and Eibar to definite look to start on the front foot, they were 2-0 up inside 35 minutes in the reverse fixture and a repeat would not surprise.
 

Only Real Madrid have collected more FH points than Eibar, only Las Palmas have fewer than Granada, six of the hosts eight league wins have been by two or more goals and seven have come against teams 12th or lower in La Liga and Granada meet all the criteria !
 

 

Eibar: Riesgo , Irureta, Capa, Dos Santos, Ramis, Ekiza, Luna , Juncà, Dani García, Adrián, Eddy Silvestre, Iñigo Barrenetxea, Inui, Keko, Saúl Berjón , Verdi, Sergi Enrich ,Borja Bastón.

Granada: Kelava, Andrés Fernández,Lombán, Biraghi, Mainz, Babin, Dória, Foulquier , Miguel Lopes, Fran Rico, Rober Ibáñez, Edgar, Rubén Pérez, Rene Krhin , Uche, El Arabi, Success ,Peñaranda.
 

 

Copa del Rey: Las Palmas- Eibar  ( Written January 13th)

 

Last week's first leg was a fiesty affair which saw Las Palmas take a 3-2 lead into today's game and Eibar end with nine men, ahead of that match up my notes went an awful lot like this ...........
 

 

I did think that LP might have stayed in the region after that game (Eibar is only50km from Bilbao), but they made the long flight home and flew back into Bilbao yesterday afternoon, given that it was the "holiday" yesterday, I suspect the players were given some time with their family this week and I doubt that they have done much apart from that and flying to and from the Basque region. That is at least ten hours in the air already, add in transit times and it is quite a drain on already tired limbs. LP surely have to have survival as their number one, two and three priority, after taking 28 years to return to the top flight and IMO, they could do without further involvement in a competition they cannot win. They play three home league games this month and they give them a real opportunity to open up some daylight over the bottom three and that should be their focus. They have traveled with a "strong" squad in terms of who is available, but have left Tana and Viera who scored three of last week's six goals at home, I guess with the visit from Malaga firmly in mind. I suspect that options are limited beyond was is availble to start right now and they made their three substitutions very late at San Mames, which indicates as much and at least two of those were just to waste a little injury time. I doubt they have much left in the tank and expect them to play with one eye on the upcoming league fixture .
 

At the weekend I covered Eibar's home game with Espanyol and spoke about how the LP game played out ............

They led twice there and were 2-1 up at the break, but ended the match with nine men and lost 3-2, they can recall Ramis, Capa and Garcia (see the trio above) and that will freshen up the squad. Espanyol have started 2016 with back to back deby games with Barcelona, so I am not sure how much they have left in the tank after chasing Messi and co for 180 minutes. Being a derby, they did not really have the option to rest players in midweek and went with their strongest available line up, with 12 players featuring in both games, like Eibar, they ended the midweek game with nine men and played the last 20 there two players short, which is about as thankless a task (v Barce) as I can think of ! They have a big loss today with the suspension to centre back Alvaro Gonzalez, who is pretty much the first defensive name on the team sheet.

Both teams ended their midweek games in shambolic fashion and I can see the early action that has been a feature of Eibar games ( see above) continuing and the three Espanyol road games have produced six FH goals and,in the two h2h games last season, the visiting team scored three FH goals.
 

The desired early goals came with both teams on the score sheet before the break and I see this playing out similarly, Eibar are spitfires in the first half and already trailing from the first leg are hardly going to sit on their hands for too long this evening, they are going to make a lot of changes, but head coach José Luis Mendilibar was very bullish about this game and was "expecting" to progress. Regardless of line up, his team will go for it and the trend for early goals looks set to continue.