Mallorca vs Espanyol Predictions & Match Preview

Mallorca vs Espanyol predictions and match preview for Friday’s LaLiga fixture. Read on for analysis, team news and predicted lineups as Javier Aguirre comes up against his old club.

Mallorca vs Espanyol Preview

Friday’s action in LaLiga this week comes from Palma de Mallorca where Espanyol are the visitors. Just two places and two points separate the sides in the league standings with an even game expected here.

Mallorca collected a terrific three points last time out. Goals from Vedat Muriqi and Lee Kang-in secured a 2-1 win away to Valencia who had been going pretty well under Gennaro Gattuso. It was a result that would have given Javier Aguirre great satisfaction and the Mexican appears to be doing a really good job with this Mallorca side.

He has made them relatively tough to score against and they look well on course to at least beat the drop this season. The ceiling is unlikely to be anything much higher than their current 12th place but it’ll be interesting to see what Aguirre can achieve in what promises to be his first full season in LaLiga since 2013/14 when he was in charge of Espanyol.

Diego Martinez is the man at the helm of the Catalan club these days and it has been a frustrating start in many respects for the former Granada boss. Defensive and goalkeeping errors have played a big role in Espanyol not accumulating more than 10 points from their opening 11 games but some of their attacking play has been quite positive.

They certainly created the better chances last time out against Elche and probably should have won a game that ended 2-2. We did at least see two players besides top scorer Joselu get on the scoresheet with Javi Puado and Martin Braithwaite both netting. Martinez will want that trend to continue but his priority right now may be trying to find a way to stop leaking goals with Espanyol having conceded 7 more times than their opponents in this game.

Team News & Possible Lineups

Mallorca

Possible XI: Rajkovic – Costa, Copete, Raillo, Valjent, Maffeo – Baba, Antonio, Galaretta – Muriqi, Kang-in (5-3-2)

Coach: Javier Aguirre

Espanyol

Possible XI: Lecomte – Olivan, Cabrera, Gomez, Gil – Exposito, Souza – Braithwaite, Darder, Puado – Joselu (4-2-3-1)

Coach: Diego Martinez

Score Prediction: Mallorca 1-1 Espanyol

Mallorca have claimed a couple of impressive wins on the road but it’s just one home win so far and that came against what was at the time an out of sorts Almeria. Espanyol are playing a bit better than their results suggest and they may have enough to get something here.

PLEASE NOTE – Our LaLiga predictions are not betting tips! No profits are guaranteed if you’re using them to bet on Spanish football. If you are gambling, do so responsibly and never stake more than you can afford to lose. BeGambleAware.