Cadiz vs. Barcelona Betting Tips: Lewandowski and Raphinha to pile more misery on La Liga strugglers

Fresh from a Robert Lewandowski inspired 5-1 demolition of Viktoria Plzen in the Champions League, Barcelona now return to La Liga action on Saturday evening away to pointless basement club Cadiz. The match will take place at 5.30pm (BST) and will be available to watch on Premier Sports 1 and LaLigaTV….

Barcelona sit 2nd in the table following a return of 10 points from their opening four matches. Rivals Real Madrid are the early pacesetters with a maximum 12 points on the board but the defending champions aren’t in action until Sunday, meaning a fourth straight league win on the spin will take Barcelona to the summit, for the moment at least.

After a stalemate at home to Rayo Vallecano in their season opener, Barcelona have now clicked into gear, winning their following four consecutive matches in all competitions. In the process Xavi’s in-form side have hammered in 16 goals and conceded just once.

Robert Lewandowki is firing and the goals are flowing, so you really do fear for Cadiz this weekend. The basement club are the only top-flight team without a point or even a goal so far this term after losing all four of their fixtures to date, leaking in 10 goals. They can, however, draw a small dose of confidence from impressive previous meetings with Barcelona: they are unbeaten in four duels and took four points off them last season.

But this new-look Barcelona appear to be a different animal to the wounded one Cadiz faced last season, reflected in their price of 1/4 for the win. Hosts Cadiz are 14/1 to conjure up back-to-back wins over Barcelona, with a draw at 11/2.

As always we bring you two tips for the action, along with their justifications...

Robert Lewandowski bagged a hat-trick in the mid-week rout of Viktoria Plzen, propelling his tally to eight goals in his last four games. With a crunch clash against his old side Bayern looming next week, the Pole’s minutes could be monitored by Xavi against Cadiz, however we still expect him to start the game and run riot during the time he's on the pitch.

"He makes the team better, he helps us play out, he presses and brings us loads of solutions in attack,” Xavi beamed after the Champions League win.

“He is a player with tremendous maturity. It's an honour to have him."

Lewandowski has a joint-league high five league goals on the board already from 18 shots, 12 of which have been on goal. It doesn’t usually take the world class striker long to get warmed up in matches, reflected in the stats which show that he’s scored in the first-half of his last four league and cup games. At 2/1 (William Hill) I’m backing that before-the-break goals tally to be extended against Cadiz.

Raphinha scored his first Barcelona goal last weekend in a 3-0 win at Sevilla, before being rested mid-week. The ex-Leeds sensation should be recalled to the starting line-up against Cadiz.

In the three league that he's started for Barcelona he’s had 11 shots, two of which have been on target, producing the aforementioned goal. Full of panache and intent, the trickster should be at his menacing and creative best against struggling Cadiz, who have already given 10 goals so far. In Cadiz’s last two games alone their opponents have had a combined 29 shots, scoring seven goals.

Raphinha is available at 2/1 to add to his goalscoring tally, but it’s William Hill’s boosted 5/1 - up from 17/5 - that grabs my attention for the winger to have over two shots on target. Now fully rested, he’s likely to feature for the duration of the game and is sure to get plenty of chances on goal.