La Liga Preview – Copybet

Last season marked the sixth in a row in which the champions failed to retain their La Liga crown as Real Madrid were pipped to the title by their bitter rivals Barcelona.

Madrid have rolled the dice this summer, bringing in Xabi Alonso as their new manager and also spending big money on Dean Huijsen and Trent Alexander-Arnold, but their new additions may take a while to settle and their new boss’ tactics are vastly different to his predecessor’s.

Barcelona, meanwhile, have mainly kept their title-winning squad together. Experienced defender Inigo Martinez may be missed but no other departures should affect them too much, while they have added a quality goalkeeper in Joan Garcia and an exciting attacker in Marcus Rashford.

Hansi Flick defended a title when at Bayern Munich and he can do so again with Barca, who have three of the world’s best players, Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Pedri, among their attacking talents.

They finished only four points ahead of Real last term, but were clearly the best team in Spain, scoring 24 goals more than their rivals, and they should only get better as Yamal and Pedri get closer to their prime.

The relegation battle in last season’s La Liga was intense, with five teams avoiding the drop by fewer than three points. Espanyol were one of those sides, but they may not be so fortunate this time around.

The Catalonian outfit lost five of their final six games, only staying up by beating already-relegated Las Palmas on the final day, and they have lost their best player, goalkeeper Garcia.

No goalkeeper in the Spanish top flight had a better post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed figure than Garcia’s 7.7 last term, meaning he prevented almost eight goals with his fantastic reflexes.

He will be sorely missed and not having a goalkeeper of his level could be the killer blow for a side that flirted with relegation for the majority of last season.

Despite only turning 18 last month, Yamal has already established himself as one of the world’s best players. He will only get better with age and it is hard to see anyone registering more assists than him in La Liga.

Last season saw the Barcelona superstar top the assists chart with 13 - four more than anybody else - and he has even more attackers to provide for this term, too, with Rashford joining Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, Dani Olmo and Ferran Torres in a stacked frontline.

He is the favourite to get the most assists for a reason and he should run away with it again.