Deportivo La Coruña vs Levante: Can the Hosts Keep Their Brittle Defence Together?
SportSignals Match Desk · Football analysis desk ·
Friday night football in La Liga. Deportivo La Coruña against Levante. On paper it looks like a game between two sides still finding their feet. On the evidence available, that is exactly what it is. Neither team has convinced me yet. Neither team has shown the defensive standards you need if you want to compete at this level. But there is a game to be played, and someone has to win it, so let us get into it.
Deportivo's Form: Goals Are There, Discipline Is Not
Across their last five La Liga matches, Deportivo have put together a record of two wins, two draws and one loss. Eight goals scored, six conceded. The form string reads LDWWD and that tells you something straight away. They are capable of winning. They beat Villarreal three goals to two and they beat Valencia three goals to one. Those are real results against real opposition. Good. Fine.
The thing is, they have not kept a single clean sheet in those five matches. Not one. Every game has had goals at both ends. Their clean sheet percentage stands at zero. Zero. That is not a blip. That is a pattern. And patterns like that do not fix themselves on a Friday night without a serious change in attitude at the back.
Their most recent outing was a loss to Sevilla, one goal to nil. Before that, a draw with Getafe, one apiece. They have shown they can score. They cannot keep the door shut. That is the basic problem with Deportivo right now and I do not need a laptop to tell me that. I watched the games.
Levante's Form: Volatile and Unreliable
Levante are not much better, if I am being straight with you. Their last five La Liga matches: one win, two draws and two losses. Seven scored, nine conceded. The form string is LDWDL. That last result, a loss to Barcelona where Levante conceded four goals and scored two, tells you plenty about their defensive organisation. Or the lack of it.
The win that stands out in their recent five is a five goals to two victory over Real Betis. Five. That is an impressive number. But the goals against in that same window, nine in five matches, suggest that any time Levante open up, they invite the opposition right back in. Widen the window out to ten La Liga matches and you get four wins, two draws and four losses. Seventeen scored, twenty conceded. They are scoring goals regularly. They are also giving them away regularly. That is not a recipe for consistency. That is a recipe for chaos.
There is one thing in their favour. Across that ten-match window, Levante have kept three clean sheets. Their clean sheet percentage sits at thirty percent over the longer sample. It is something. It is not much, but it is something compared to Deportivo's zero.
The Defensive Problem Is Real for Both Sides
Listen, when both teams cannot keep a clean sheet and both teams are consistently conceding, the logical question is whether this game stays low-scoring or blows open. Both teams have conceded in the majority of their recent matches. Deportivo's both-teams-to-score rate over five matches is eighty percent. Levante's is forty percent over five but sixty percent over ten. The evidence points toward goals being likely. Whether those goals fall in a controlled or chaotic way is the real question.
There are also injury concerns on both sides. Each club is carrying at least one player out with a significant problem. One long-term absence and one major injury between the squads. I am not going to speculate on who those players are because I do not have that detail confirmed. What I will say is that when your defensive basics are already shaky and you are missing bodies, the last thing you want is a game against a side that has shown it can score three in a single match.
The Basics and What They Tell Me
Deportivo are at home. Home advantage matters. They have shown they can score goals in big moments. The Valencia and Villarreal wins were not flukes. They were competitive performances. The concern is purely at the back. If they can hold their shape for sixty minutes, they have the quality going forward to find the net.
Levante are unpredictable. That five-two over Betis looks brilliant until you remember they lost nil to three against Espanyol in their five-match window. The same team. The same players. The desire is inconsistent. The accountability is inconsistent. When Levante are switched on they can play. When they are not, they fold.
The thing is, Deportivo are at home, they have won their last home fixtures against Villarreal and Valencia, and they are facing a Levante side that has lost twice in their last five, including a heavy defeat. Home advantage, crowd behind them, and an opposition with real vulnerabilities at the back. That combination points toward Deportivo.
Connor's Call
I am taking Deportivo La Coruña to win this match. They are at home. They have shown the desire to compete against decent sides. Levante's away record in their recent five, one win, two draws and two losses, does not fill me with confidence in them holding anything here. Their defensive numbers away from home are poor and Deportivo, for all their faults at the back, have firepower.
One bet. Deportivo to win. Straight. No complications. End of.