Once a powerhouse of Spanish football, the club find themselves in dangerous territory and risk getting relegated for the first time since 1986.
Odds courtesy of 1xBet. Correct at time of publishing and subject to change.
Stats Suggest There’s Still Hope
Known for his ability to motivate underachieving squads, the 40-year-old Spanish manager is tasked with saving his boyhood club.
Although Corberán’s appointment comes as a breath of fresh air, the team are unlikely to see any reinforcements in the January transfer window.
The need for new players is stark—particularly a playmaker, a winger and a clinical goalscorer to solve their offensive woes. Still, the owner Peter Lim has been hesitant to invest.
However, Corberán’s track record at West Bromwich Albion, where he propelled a struggling squad into play-off contention with small investments, offers some hope.
Yet, the statistics tell a different story: no La Liga team with 12 points or fewer at the halfway mark has ever managed to avoid relegation.
Can Corberán make Valencia difficult to beat?
Their issues do not necessarily lie in defence, as they have conceded just 26 goals and have just one more expected goal against (xGA).
The real issue is up front. With only 16 goals scored, Los Ches have the second-worst attacking record in La Liga, which is also reflected in their expected goals (xG) tally of 17.54.
They remain winless on the road, but according to expected points, they should sit out of the bottom three, with a total of 18.46 points.
A Challenging Road Ahead for Corberán at Valencia
Carlos Corberán achieved a 43.93% win rate at West Bromwich Albion, the highest of his managerial career.
His 107 games in charge of Albion have not been marked by a high volume of goals; in fact, only 2.42 goals on average were recorded per match, both for and against WBA.
This figure is relatively low for the Championship, where the average goals per game this season is 2.48, compared to 2.68 last season.
West Brom have failed to score in 7 out of 24 Championship matches this campaign. Only 9 out of 38 games (38%) have featured more than three goals.
The statistics are similar to those last season, where just 22 out of 46 league games involved more than three goals.
The odds for Valencia to be relegated are set at 1.90, which implies a 52.6% chance of them dropping down.
However, our projections place them fifth from bottom at the end of the season, with 38.5 points—three more than Leganés in 18th place.
Our model gives Valencia a 30.2% chance of relegation, suggesting they can improve and collect an average of 1.23 points per game in their remaining 21 fixtures.
This sounds familiar to Valencia, who also battled relegation two seasons ago.
From January 2023 onwards, Valencia averaged only 1 point per game, sacked Gennaro Gattuso to hire Ruben Baraja and finished 16th, two points above the drop.
However, securing a victory over Real Madrid this Friday seems difficult. Valencia have won just one of their last eight games against Los Blancos, but since 2018, they have always scored at least once at Mestalla.
Our in-house model predicts Carlo Ancelotti’s team will score at least 1.76 goals and gives them a 59.09% chance of winning the game.
In the past 12 months, Real have drawn just one 0-0 game, whereas the hosts have collected six scoreless draws since the beginning of last season.
In this case, betting on a Madrid victory and no more than three goals being scored in the match seems to be a good option.