Tactical Preview: Sevilla-Round Of 16

Well, just where do I start? This season has been amazing for Sevilla. After selling stars such as Banega, Gameiro, Krychowiak and Coke, I thought this season was going to come back and hit us hard, but once again Monchi has replaced them with gems. Sarabia for £200,000, Ben Yedder £8,000,000 but best of all, Samir Nasri and Jovetic on loan deals. Don’t forget the importance of keeping Iborra and the one and only, Vitolo! My favourite player.

I have to admit, I wasn’t impressed with Sampaoli at the start of the season. We scraped wins against Espanyol, Las Palmas, our city rivals Real Betis and Depor all games at home. I thought the train was going to derail but it’s continued going and it doesn’t look like coming off the tracks anytime soon. Our 2-0 victory against Eibar made it five victories in the last eight games in all competitions. Only one of these eight games has ended in defeat, leaving us just three points behind Real Madrid at the top of the table. At home, we’ve only lost 6 of the last 45 competitive games. The Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan is a fortress. That sounds like a false stat, doesn’t it? Go check it out.

Sampaoli loves possession, and he screams “If we have the ball, they cannot score,” everyday in training. I’m sure you can find videos of this on Youtube. I think we should dominate possession against Leicester but even if we do not, we should walk away with the victory. Look at our goal against Las Palmas on the weekend, Sergio Rico direct goal kick, Iborra flick on, Joaquin Correa finishes it. We can literally score from anything now.

Who should you look out for? I honestly think there are too many players to mention but like I say every big game, If VITOLO plays well then we will win. Don’t expect him to score a hat-trick, he isn’t that type of player but he’s by far our best player. Just watch him closely and you will understand why. You will see Escudero and Mariano bombing it down the wings, Nasri collecting the ball from deep and trying to ping it around.