Football Bet of the Day: Parakeets to land first blow in Malaga

Malaga v Espanyol
Monday 20:00 (Live on Sky Sports Football)

A goal midway through each half put paid to Moreirense's hopes of an upset in Portugal last night. The second goal dashed Kev's hopes of a handicap win as Benfica ran out 2-0 winners.

For our first bet of 2018, we're crossing the Iberian peninsula and heading on down to Malaga where, among all of the paella and chips, we've found a bet to like.

Espanyol are the only La Liga team without an away win this season, but tonight brings the Parakeets a great chance to break their duck. Quique Flores's men are unbeaten in five seasons of head-to-heads with Malaga (W5-D5-L0). Excitingly for us, they've scored the first goal in all eight of those matches that didn't finish goalless.

Just before Christmas, Espanyol raced into a 2-0 lead against bottom-of-the-table Las Palmas before being pegged back for a 2-2 draw. In previous campaigns, they struck first in 5/10 against teams that finished in the bottom six.

Second-bottom Malaga have conceded the first goal on 7/15 appearances at the Rosaleda under their current boss. Michel's men have failed to score in either of their last two on home turf and, if they're to get anything from tonight's game, we fancy they might have to come from behind.