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Deportivo Alavés host Mallorca at Mendizorrotza on Saturday afternoon in a LaLiga meeting that feels heavier than the table might suggest. Alavés sit 18th with 33 points, just one place and two points below their visitors, and both clubs are looking over their shoulders rather than dreaming big. This is the sort of late-season game that can drag a team out of trouble or leave it staring at the drop zone.
For Alavés, the pressure is obvious. They’ve been dragged into a survival scrap by a season that’s produced too many open games and too few clean sheets. Mallorca arrive in slightly better shape, 15th on 35 points, but their away form has been so poor that they’ve hardly earned the comfort of that gap. Seven points separate them from real breathing space. Not much at all.
The backdrop is straightforward. This isn’t a cup tie with romance attached or a European knockout with glamour and jeopardy. It’s LaLiga, and for both sides the prize is safety. Alavés need to turn home advantage into something tangible. Mallorca need to prove they can travel without collapsing. Neither can really afford to be passive here.
Alavés come into this one with a familiar sense of frustration. Their trip to Real Madrid on 21 April ended in a 2-1 defeat, and while that sounds respectable enough, the game told a sharper story. They gave up the first goal, found themselves chasing, and only got something back through Toni Martínez in stoppage time. That late strike was a small lift. It didn’t change the bigger picture. They’ve now gone three league games without a win, and their last six have been a messy mix of one victory, three draws and two defeats.
The pattern underneath those results is the real concern. Alavés drew 3-3 away to Real Sociedad, then 2-2 at home to Osasuna, before that lively 4-3 win at Celta Vigo back on 22 March. Since then, though, they’ve been stuck in a rut. The 1-1 home draw with Villarreal and the 3-2 loss at Valencia suggest a side that can score, but can’t shut games down. They’ve scored in six straight league matches. They haven’t kept a clean sheet in 14. That’s not a good combination when you’re trying to survive.
At home, the numbers are a touch kinder. Five wins, six draws and four defeats at Mendizorrotza is hardly formidable, but it’s not hopeless either, and 19 goals scored against 18 conceded shows they usually compete on their own pitch. The issue is that the margin for error is tiny. They’re averaging barely more than a goal a game at home, and they’ve often needed to chase games rather than control them. Quique Sánchez Flores will know that if his side concede first here, the atmosphere can turn flat in a hurry.
Still, there’s a reason this fixture feels open. Alavés have scored freely enough to drag themselves into matches, and their recent xG numbers at Real Madrid — 1.51 created despite the defeat — hint at a team that isn’t relying purely on scraps. They did create chances at the Bernabéu. They just couldn’t defend their own box with enough authority. That’s been the story too often. Useful going forward. Too brittle behind it.
Mallorca arrive with a bit more momentum, even if their season overall has been lumpy. The 1-1 draw with Valencia on 21 April extended a three-match unbeaten run, and it was a decent point on the back of their 3-0 home win over Rayo Vallecano and that eye-catching 2-1 victory against Real Madrid in Palma. Those are proper results. The win over Madrid was especially eye-catching, because it showed they can hurt elite opposition when they get the first punch in and protect the box properly.
Before that little surge, though, Mallorca had been uneven. They lost 2-1 away to Elche, beat Espanyol 2-1 at home, and drew 2-2 at Osasuna. So there’s no grand consistency here. They’re still a side that can be awkward at home and unreliable on the road. You can see both faces within a fortnight. That’s life with Mallorca this season.
The away record is the ugly part. One win, three draws and 11 defeats tells you almost everything you need to know. They’ve taken only six points from 15 away matches, and they’ve shipped 29 goals. That’s poor enough on paper, and it’s worse when you watch the game state develop. Too often they’ve been too easy to play against once they’re off their own patch. No real control, not enough protection, and too many matches drifting away from them.
The positive for Martín Demichelis is that Mallorca have been contributing in attack lately. They’ve scored in five of their last six league games, and in the 1-1 draw with Valencia they generated 1.84 xG while managing 20 shots and eight on target. That wasn’t a smash-and-grab. It was a proper attacking performance, with Samú Costa and Umar Sadiq on the scoresheet. If they can carry even some of that into this away trip, they’ll fancy getting at a leaky Alavés back line. The problem, as ever, is the other end. Away from home, Mallorca don’t defend well enough for long enough. That’s why the table keeps pointing in the wrong direction.
This is a fixture that usually keeps things tight. Five of the last five meetings listed here have stayed under 2.5 goals, and that’s hard to ignore. Mallorca beat Alavés 1-0 in September 2025, the sides drew 1-1 in March 2025, and Alavés edged a 1-0 win at home in November 2024. Go back a little further and the pattern becomes even more familiar: 1-1, 0-0, 2-1, 0-1, 1-0. There’s rarely much between them.
The one thing that stands out most is how often neither side has given much away. These meetings have a habit of becoming scrappy, narrow, and a little tense. Not exactly a goal festival. That said, both teams arrive with stronger attacking traces than some previous editions of this fixture, so there’s a small risk the historical pattern gets stretched. Still, the recent scorelines between them lean strongly towards caution.
We’re backing Both Teams To Score at 4/5 for this one. That’s the angle that fits best. Alavés have scored in six league matches on the spin, and they’ve gone 14 games without a clean sheet. Mallorca, for their part, have found the net in five of their last six and have scored in each of their last three away fixtures on the road in different stages of the season’s run. Both sides have enough going forward to land a punch here.
The xG projection has Alavés at 1.7 and Mallorca at 1.3, which lines up neatly with a 2-1 home win. That’s the scoreline I’d land on too. Alavés’ home record is solid enough to suggest they won’t fold, but Mallorca’s away defending is too soft to trust in full. If this opens up, both teams should land. An alternative angle would be over 2.5 goals, but BTTS feels the cleaner play given how often these two are now involved in chaotic, one-step-forward-one-step-back games.
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