betprepare.com

Porto meet just the kind of opponent they need after being defeated in the derby match

Lopetegui's wish is to turn superiority into goals, and their opponent is ideal judging by the away team's shape and head-to-head matches in which Porto were victorious 23 times in a row

Getty Images

A defeat to Benfica and 3-point deficit in the table: Porto cannot afford a new failure, even though there are still 21 rounds left. While having better results in the Champions League, Lopetegui managed to lose both classicos - both times home.

Benfica used what little chance they were given in the derby. A deficit of six points means that Porto need very good rest of the season, the one which Lopetegui is already announcing:

- We wanted to find ourselves in different circumstances in the championship because we needed to have more points, but I believe in better games to come, starting this Friday. I'm happy with the progress of the team because this is Porto's youngest team in history and they still have room to improve.

Rio Ave Futebol Clube

The Spaniard spiced it up with a couple of typical phrases about their opponent:

- V. Setubal don't have the points they deserve. They are demanding opponents with a coach who not long ago held the European final. We will have to show character in order to win and play well, which is our intention in each match. We're not thinking about the past, but what's in front of us.

Lopetegui posted Marcan instead of Maicon since the first minute of the derby, and that's where he made the mistake. Casemiro will miss this game because of a fifth yellow card, and Neves is continuing his recovery. A new name on the list is Campana who may start from the first minute if Lopetegui decides not to pull Herrera as the back midfielder.

Porto and Setubal don't fit into the same sentence, but they have something in common. Both were completely disappointing in the last round; the away team even more so because they were defeated in four matches without a scored goal. Currently they're two points from the danger zone. In the last round they hosted Boavista and lost the expected home points. After too much contact in the offense and errors in the defense, coach Domingos also turned to the referees:

- I'm sad and angry. I'm sad because we did everything we could to defeat Boavista who played with 11 players in defense. We tried to play, we had the possession, and we conceded a goal from a counterattack. I'm angry because I'd like the referees to see things the way we see them. We were not awarded two good penalty kicks and I don't know how Mr. Mota didn't see them.

Away matches are usually their weak points. This season, they managed to win two out of 21 points, and they haven't scored for eight games on Dragao. Domingos sees the situation as complicated, but not dramatic, and Porto are not denying the role of the favorites, although they say they could achieve a positive result:

- Porto are arriving after a negative result and surely want to make up for it. That's why we expect a strong Porto on home turf, and we will do anything to make that difficult for them because we think we can reach a positive result despite the weak phase we're in. We have to get our quality up because we have positions we need to strengthen, and we're working on that.

Domingos, Porto's legendary forward with whom they've won seven championships, again added that he's not bothering himself with the potential sacking. He's looking forward to January when he hopes to strengthen the team in which he put junior Horta who will be playing here from the first minute as well. They haven't announced the list for this away match yet, but we know there won't be injured Yanno and Pedro (cards), who is, next to Schmidt, the away team's best scorer.

All of the last 23 matches in all of the competitions, despite being home or away, went into the favor of Porto, and the last time Setubal took a point was in 2005, which was the only positive outcome in the last 35 head-to-head matches against Porto.