Deportivo Alavés vs Athletic Club Prediction & Betting Tips 02.05.2026

Deportivo Alavés host Athletic Club at Mendizorroza on Saturday evening in LaLiga, with both sides still trying to turn a messy season into something more respectable. Alavés are 16th with 36 points, six clear of the drop zone but not exactly safe yet, while Athletic sit 10th on 41 points and need a strong finish if they want to salvage any sort of push up the table. This isn’t a glamour tie on the surface. It matters plenty to both clubs.

There’s also a Basque edge to it, which always sharpens the mood. Quique Sánchez Flores will be asking Alavés to keep their momentum going after a welcome home win over Mallorca, while Ernesto Valverde’s Athletic arrive with far more attacking frustration than they’d like after a wild defeat at Atlético Madrid. Neither side is free-flowing enough to promise a classic. Both are far too open to ignore. That’s why the goals market feels so alive here.

Alavés have spent much of the season living on the edge, but they’ve at least found a way to keep themselves moving. The run leading into this game tells a familiar story: a home win over Mallorca, a narrow defeat at Real Madrid, a draw at Real Sociedad, another home stalemate with Osasuna, that crazy 4-3 win at Celta Vigo, and a 1-1 draw with Villarreal before all that. They’re not exactly controlling games, but they are hard to put away and they’ve kept enough attacking threat around to stay in touch. That won’t be lost on Athletic.

Athletic, for their part, have been much less convincing than a 10th-place finish might suggest. Their last six have swung from a 2-1 home win over Betis to away losses at Girona, Getafe and Atlético Madrid, with a narrow home defeat to Villarreal and a 1-0 win over Osasuna in between. There’s nothing steady about that sequence. One week they’re nicking a result, the next they’re leaving space everywhere and paying for it. On Saturday, they face a side that rarely sits quietly.

Deportivo Alavés Form & Analysis

That 2-1 win over Mallorca felt important because it was more than just three points. Alavés were sharp, direct and efficient, and the numbers from that match back it up: 15 shots to Mallorca’s four, four on target, and a tiny 0.21 xGA. That’s a proper home performance. Toni Martínez scored twice, Jan Virgili got the opener, and for once Alavés looked like the side in control rather than the one hanging on. After a spell of draws and that loss at Real Madrid, it was the kind of result that steadies the room.

The bigger picture at Mendizorroza is decent enough. Alavés have picked up 24 points at home from six wins, six draws and only four defeats, with 21 goals scored and 19 conceded. That’s not elite, but it’s a solid platform. They’re far more comfortable when the game is open and a bit scrappy, and that’s been clear for weeks. They’ve scored in almost every direction lately, from the 4-3 away win at Celta to the 3-3 draw at Real Sociedad and the 2-2 with Osasuna. Clean sheets are rare, though. Fifteen matches without one is a long stretch. You’d expect chances at both ends here.

There’s a directness to Alavés that fits this fixture. They don’t need long spells of possession to cause problems. They need moments. The threat is there, but so is the looseness at the back. Their last six league games have produced plenty of goals, and the home record tells the same tale: steady enough in attack, vulnerable enough in defence to keep opponents interested. That’s why they’re not the sort of side you trust for a shutout, even at home. They’ll fight. They’ll leave openings too.

Athletic Club Form & Analysis

Athletic’s recent form has been a bit of a mess, and the defeat at Atlético on 25 April summed it up perfectly. They scored twice, which sounds encouraging, but they also gave up three and allowed 2.08 xGA. That’s the story of their spring in a nutshell: enough attacking moments to look dangerous, not enough control to see games out. Aitor Paredes, Griezmann, Sorloth and Guruzeta were all on the scoresheet in a frantic finish, but the damage had already been done. They were chasing shadows for long stretches.

Before that, the 1-0 home win over Osasuna offered a brief reset, but it didn’t last. Villarreal beat them 2-1 in Bilbao, Getafe took them down 2-0 away from home, and even the earlier 2-1 win over Betis came with plenty of tension. Athletic’s away record tells you why they’ve struggled to build any real head of steam: three wins, three draws and ten defeats, with 15 goals scored and 29 conceded on the road. That’s a poor return. Plain and simple. A team with those numbers can’t expect to travel with confidence.

The problem isn’t just losing. It’s how often they concede first and how hard they find it to recover away from home. Athletic have enough quality to get on the scoresheet, especially when the game opens up, but they’ve been too easy to disrupt and too generous defensively. Against Alavés, that matters. Quique Sánchez Flores’ side will not give them a tidy, controlled afternoon. They’ll drag them into a scrap, and Athletic haven’t shown much appetite for that kind of fight away from home this season.

Head-to-Head

This fixture has been tight enough in recent meetings, and that’s worth keeping in mind. Alavés won 1-0 at San Mamés in September 2025, and they also beat Athletic 1-0 in a friendly a couple of months earlier. Athletic did edge the May 2025 league meeting 1-0, while the December 2024 game finished 1-1 in Vitoria. Go back a little further and Athletic had the upper hand with 2-0 wins in both league and Copa del Rey meetings in 2024, plus a 2-0 league win in 2023.

The one angle that stands out is the low-scoring trend in this fixture. Ten of the last ten head-to-heads in the database have stayed under 2.5 goals. That’s a serious pattern. It doesn’t guarantee another tight one, especially with both sides carrying defensive baggage, but it does explain why these meetings often become tense and cagey rather than open and free-scoring.

We Predict: Both Teams To Score

We’re backing Both Teams To Score at 8/11 here, and it’s the clearest play on the board. For more context beyond this pick, see our accumulator tips page, which pulls together accumulator tips if you want to turn similar reads into a stronger combo ticket. Alavés have been on an endless run of finding the net without keeping things tight at the other end, and Athletic arrive with a defence that’s been leaking badly on the road. Both sides have too much attacking life to sit on the fence, and both have shown they can be exposed.

The 1-1 correct score looks right. That fits the shape of the game, the home split, and the fact that Athletic usually find a way to create enough to score even when they’re not playing well. Alavés’ home record suggests they won’t fold, but Athletic’s away defending means they’re unlikely to keep them out. If you wanted a smaller add-on, the draw also has some appeal. Still, BTTS is the main angle.