Celta Vigovs.Valladolid

The visitors will also look to produce a positive response after suffering a heavy 7-0 defeat in their most recent outing against Barcelona.

Match preview

Claudio Giraldez has experienced a mixed start to his time as Celta head coach, with the opening four matches producing two wins and two draws.

Celta kicked off the campaign with consecutive home wins against Alaves and Valencia, before they conceded in stoppage time to lose 4-3 in their away meeting with Villarreal.

Another defeat followed in their most recent outing against Osasuna at El Sadar, where a Borja Iglesias strike and a Moi Gomez own goal could not prevent Celta from falling to a 3-2 defeat.

As a result of those defeats, the Galician side have now lost five of their previous six away games in the top flight.

With that in mind, they will be looking forward to returning to Balaidos, where they have gone eight league matches without defeat (W6, D2) since losing to Barcelona in February.

They will fancy their chances of extending that run against newly-promoted Valladolid, especially as they have avoided defeat in each of their previous eight competitive home meetings with Sunday's opponents.

After suffering relegation in their last two top-flight campaigns, Valladolid are hoping to avoid a similar fate in Paulo Pezzolano's first season as a La Liga manager.

Pezzolano would have been pleased to see his side get off to a winning start, with Raul Moro netting the decisive goal in a 1-0 victory over fellow newly-promoted side Espanyol.

Unfortunately for Valladolid, they have been unable to build upon that opening-day win, going on to lose 3-0 to Real Madrid and drawing 0-0 with Leganes before slumping to a heavy defeat in their away meeting with early pace setters Barcelona.

Valladolid conceded four goals in the space of 21 second-half minutes as they fell to a 7-0 defeat at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, leaving them with the worst defensive record in the top flight this season.

Having mustered one goal in four matches, Pezzolano's charges went into the international break as the league's joint-lowest scorers alongside Real Betis and Getafe.

Valladolid will be looking to improve at both ends of the pitch as they go in search of their first competitive away win over Celta since April 2011.

Celta Vigo La Liga form:

W

W

L

L

Real Valladolid La Liga form:

W

L

D

L

Team News

Celta full-back Javier Manquillo sustained a muscle injury in Thursday's training session and has been ruled out of the meeting with Valladolid.

Carlos Dominguez is also unavailable due to injury, while Alfonso Gonzalez is suspended following his red card in the defeat to Osasuna.

Left-back Mihailo Ristic has missed the first four matches with a leg injury and remains a doubt for Sunday's home fixture.

Defender Marcos Alonso could make his Celta debut after joining the club on a free transfer following his Barcelona departure.

As for the visitors, they are unable to call upon the injured Anuar, while Andre Ferreira and Javi Sanchez are both doubts for the away trip.

Cenk Ozkacar is in contention to make his first start for Valladolid, with the 23-year-old likely to partner his fellow Valencia loanee Eray Comert.

Amath Ndiaye and Mamadou Sylla could be recalled to the starting lineup after they dropped down to the bench for the defeat to Barcelona

Celta Vigo possible starting lineup:

Villar; Rodriguez, Jailson, Alonso; Mingueza, Rodriguez, Beltran, Alvarez; Aspas, Swedberg; Iglesias

Real Valladolid possible starting lineup:

Hein; Perez, Comert, Ozkacar, Rosa; Sanchez, Amallah, Juric, Perez; Diaye, Moro, Sylla

We say: Celta Vigo 2-0 Real Valladolid

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