Villarreal have shown improvement of late, but they are well below the team that impressed for long stages of last season, and we are finding it tough to predict them to pick up a positive result here. Atletico will be desperate to return to winning ways in the league, and Simeone's side should have enough quality to secure all three points this weekend.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Atletico Madrid win with a probability of 50.19%. A win for Villarreal had a probability of 26.53% and a draw had a probability of 23.3%.
The most likely scoreline for an Atletico Madrid win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.6%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (8.73%) and 2-0 (7.77%). The likeliest Villarreal win was 1-2 (6.66%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.78%). The actual scoreline of 3-1 was predicted with a 5.7% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Atletico Madrid would win this match.