Valencia have made a flawless start in the season, grabbing 4 points from their first two matches. They will now return home for their next assignment, where they will play host to Alaves on Friday. Alaves have lost both their matches so far and the pressure is mounting.
Valencia (1-0-1) were dominant in the first half of their away match against Granada last week, but they actually conceded an early goal. The second half was much more balanced, and Valencia scored a late goal to pull even for the final 1-1 draw. Their opponents had a disallowed goal a couple of minutes later, so the two teams split the points in a 1-1 draw. Valencia beat Getafe by 1-0 at home in the season opener and they are now sitting at the 6th spot of the league table with 4 points. Valencia had the 7th best home record last season (8-4-7) and they will surely want to repeat their success.
Alaves (0-2-0) are one of just 3 teams to have lost both matches so early in the season. They are coming into this match after an upsetting 1-0 home loss against Mallorca last week. It was a very physical match with 6 yellow cards and a red card, while it was Nino who scored the only goal of the match, allowing Mallorca to escape with all 3 points. Prior to that, Alaves did score against Real Madrid but they lost by a harsh 4-1 at home. Alaves were quite bad on the road last season (3-11-5), scoring just 15 goals and conceding 32 in the process.
