Paul Higham has picked out two Elche players primed for a booking as they visit Espanyol in La Liga.
Monday night’s game in Spain looks a home banker with Espanyol looking for a win to move closer to the European places as they host relegation candidates Elche.
The visitors could actually dig themselves out of the drop zone with victory, but it doesn’t seem likely given they’ve won just one game and five points on their travels this season – even if strangely their last trip saw them push Barcelona all the way in a 3-2 defeat.
Espanyol are handy at home as well – going unbeaten in their last seven with six of those games being victories, they’ll expect another three points on home turf here.
What Espanyol won’t expect on home turf, however, is to be handed too many yellow cards. They’re not exactly bad boys in La Liga overall, but at home they’re positively saint-like with only Real Madrid beind show fewer yellow cards at home.
Elche are seventh in terms of the number of yellow cards, but they’ll get an extra boost here as only Valencia have seen their opposition handed more bookings than Espanyol – who have had 59 yellows and four reds shown to opposing players this season.
Both cards and cards for Elche are priced accordingly, so we’ve gone for a pair of Elche players who were both booked in the first meeting this season and are prime candidates to do so again.
Helibelton Palacios has seen yellow four times this season, including two in the last four so is on a decent run of finding his way into the book. He’s 2.47/5 to get booked again.
Gonzalo Verdu is pretty much a walking booking after seeing seven handed out to him this season, including a run of being booked in five games in a row. He was booked last time out so this could be the start of another run.
We’re combined both for a Bet Builder double to kick-off the week.
Source: Betfair Spanish La Liga
