There is no time to draw breath in La Liga’s hectic start to the campaign, with the fourth round of matches squeezed in this weekend before the international break.
Leaders Barcelona are first into action and Dani Olmo will make his home debut after he scored on his league appearance in Barca jersey in the win away to Rayo Vallecano on Tuesday night.
The Spain international looks certain to start, especially after the loss of young midfielder Marc Bernal with a serious knee injury.
Barca is still without Gavi, Frenkie de Jong, Ansu Fati, Ronald Araujo and Andreas Christensen to receive Valladolid, but will expect to go into the break with four wins from four games, although the newly promoted side put up stiffer resistance to Real Madrid last weekend than the final 3-0 score implies.
Athletic Bilbao and Atletico Madrid also face up in arguably the biggest game of the weekend.
Athletic looked more like that side that finished fifth and who won 2-0 and 3-0 at home against Atletico last season, as they beat Valencia on Wednesday, with Mikel Jauregizar giving more bite to their midfield, while Nico Williams likely to start after being a substitute on Wednesday.
Atletico Madrid has spent big this summer and impressed against Girona last weekend, but was held to a frustrating 0-0 draw at home to Espanyol on Wednesday as Julian Alvarez and Alexander Sorloth misfired.
Valencia has three defeats from three games and will host Villarreal in the east-coast derby, desperately needing points. Valencia was very poor in Bilbao and faces a rival that has plenty of pace in attack, with Alex Baena, Ayoze Perez and Arnaut Danjuma able to cause a lot of problems to their defence.
Saturday also sees Espanyol look for its first win and its first goal of the season as it entertains Rayo Vallecano, while Leganes defend its unbeaten start to the season at home to Mallorca, who will once again look to the attacking power of Vedat Muriqi.
Real Madrid are at home to Real Betis on Sunday, with Kylian Mbappe still looking for his first league goal since arriving from Paris Saint-Germain.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side again disappointed in Las Palmas on Thursday, with questions about the compatibility of Vinicius Jr and Mbappe, and a midfield that sorely missed the retired Toni Kross.
Girona looks to build on its convincing 4-0 win at home to Osasuna on Thursday with a visit to face a Sevilla side struggling to adapt to the new passing game of Garcia Pimienta. Sevilla will be without the suspended Saul Niguez for the game after his red card in Mallorca.
Getafe didn’t have a midweek game due to Betis’ European commitments and should be fresher than a Real Sociedad team who have a few question marks over them at the start to the campaign.
Defeat to Alaves on Wednesday saw La Real’s defence again look suspect and they are without suspended captain Mikel Oyarzabal after his harsh red card against Alaves.
Alaves is at home to Las Palmas, who matched Real Madrid in terms of football and chances in midweek, while Sunday also sees Osasuna at home to Celta Vigo, with Osasuna needing to recover from the thrashing defeat it suffered in Girona.
