MADRID, 12 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Villarreal wants to leave the 2022-2023 Conference League ‘parked’ until 2023 with a victory this Thursday (6:45 p.m.) in their visit to Austria Vienna, which they already clearly thrashed (5-0) at the Ciutat de València last week .
The ‘Yellow Submarine’ add full points at this start of the group stage of the third continental competition, something that only the English West Ham and the Dutch AZ Alkmaar have achieved, and they only need one point to overcome it. The fourth victory would also give them first place and avoid the ‘playoff’, as long as the Polish Lech Poznan, their pursuer with four points, did not beat the Israeli Hapoel Beer-Sheva.
So far, the team coached by Unai Emery is proving to be the undisputed favorite in their group and one of the candidates for the title in a Conference League that is serving the Basque coach to give opportunities to the less usual.
In this sense, the Irundarra will not change his plans for this trip to the Austrian capital, where Villarreal will try to leave a good and solid image in the facet that is costing him the most this campaign, despite the visitor as he demonstrated last Sunday in the Reale Arena where it fell 1-0.
The team from Castellón started very well away from home, with three wins in a row (Zorrilla, Metropolitano and Split), but since then they have gotten somewhat stuck and of the next five, they lost two, tied two and were only able to win and score against Hapoel (1-2) in this competition.
Despite this, the ‘Yellow Submarine’ is a favorite against Austria Vienna, whom they clearly defeated 5-0 last week, with José Luis Morales leading the way, author of a hat-trick in just twelve minutes. The striker from Madrid could be one of the novelties in an eleven that will be totally renewed with respect to the defeat of Real Sociedad, where only the Dutchman Arnaut Danjuma repeated with respect to the victory against the Austrian team, and in which a Alex Baena inspired in front of goal.
This planted more battle last week than the result finally reflected and will now try with the support of his public to make the game much more competitive, although he will have to improve his defensive performance. With only one point, Austria Vienna need to win to continue to aspire to continue in this Conference League.