Spanish Football Tips: Costa to continue his hot streak

REMEMBER Terry Gibson? Well, we've signed him and while he won't be kicking a football he'll be looking into his crystal ball and bringing us his best Spanish tips every week.

The ex-Spurs, Coventry and Manchester United striker is probably best remembered for his time as part of the infamous Wimbledon Crazy Gang side of the late 80s and early 90s. Now an expert in all things La Liga he works as a pundit and co-commentator on Sky Sports’ Spanish football coverage and is a contributor to unibet.

Here are Terry's tips for two big Saturday games.

Atletico Madrid v Girona (Sat 3.15pm)

Diego Costa has certainly hit the ground running on his return to Atletico. It’s three goals so far and there are already calls for him to get back into the national team. I expect him to net again this weekend against Girona.

Girona are having a really good debut campaign in La Liga but this week it’s going to be tough for them to get anything at the Wanda.

It’s just the one defeat so far for Simeone’s team and when Barca were two down at Real Sociedad last week, Simeone must have believed the title race was back on. Alas for them, Barca fought back and the gap still remains at nine points.

With Barca conceding two last week, Atletico are now statistically the best defence in La Liga once again, conceding just eight goals so far this season.

Stuani is top scorer for Girona with an impressive haul of 10 goals and he will lead the line with tenacity and belief. He did score a brace against Atletico in the opening fixture of the season and Atletico had to fight back from two down to get a share of the spoils.

Griezmann only has two goals in his last 12 games but the partnership with Costa should enable him to get back on the goal trail pretty soon.

I’m going for a 2-0 Atletico victory with Costa opening the scoring to get them on their way to another 3 points and another clean sheet. No celebrating with the fans this week Diego!

Terry's Tips

• Atletico 2, Girona 0 (24-5, Unibet)
• Costa to score first (27-10, Unibet)
• Atletico win to nil (49-50, Unibet)

Las Palmas v Valencia (Sat 7.45pm)

Bottom placed Las Palmas take on Valencia and Los Che must be licking their lips at the prospect of goals. They very recently defeated Las Palmas 5-1 on aggregate in the Copa del Rey, helped by a 4-0 home win in the second leg.

Having lost 4-0 to Valencia, Las Palmas then followed that up with a crushing 6-0 loss last week at Girona.

New coach Paco Jemez decided last week to radically change the defensive set-up of a team who had already conceded 40 goals in 18 Liga games by going with three at the back!

It wasn’t three with two wing-backs, it was one centre-back and what looked like 2 full-backs. It went exactly as you would imagine.

I liked Paco Jemez when he was first at Rayo Vallecano, his approach was somewhat different and refreshing although they too were eventually relegated in the main by conceding far too many goals.

He is trying to be too cosmetic in his approach without any sense of realism. He asks players to play in a way that they are not capable of doing and I find it all a bit self-indulgent in terms of him promoting his own unusual style of play.

Be creative in the attacking half of the pitch, by all means but if you are constantly gifting opponents goals week in week out by playing dangerously out of the back then, you are not going to get enough points to survive in any league.

Rant over! I’m expecting more from Simone Zaza in the near future as he has only scored one in the league since late October. If he needs a confidence boost who better than Las Palmas to give him exactly that.

Terry's Tips

• Las Palmas 0, Valencia 4 (25-1, Unibet)
• Zaza to score first (4-1, Unibet)
• Valencia to score over 2.5 goals (19-10, Unibet)

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