Friday Football Tips: Pick Paulino for Spain gain

Girona v Malaga
Friday 1 April, 20:00

It's another limited football coupon to choose from on Friday but there's clear cards potential in night's Spanish Segunda Division clash.

Girona and Malaga both sit in the bottom four of the second tier's fair-play table and the duo are in need of points as they head into the final stretch of the campaign, albeit for different reasons.

Girona are looking to nail down a play-off spot with even automatic promotion not yet out of the question, while Malaga sit just one place above the drop zone, although they do have a six-point cushion.

Malaga can be expected to do plenty of defending and with that in mind, forward Paulino de la Fuente looks a big price to be shown a card.

He'll need to be his fair share of tracking back, something which could lead to fouls.

Paulino has certainly committed plenty of those this season - he has 16 in his last seven starts - while his tackle count is already double what it was for Logrones in 2020/21 (in almost exactly the same game time).

His card tally ahead of this game is nine in 30 appearances, 26 of which have been starts.

He therefore looks the stand-out pick in this market at 7/2.

Referee Ivan Caparros Hernandez could be better yet he's still averaging more than four cards per game and it's not hard to see him topping that in a game featuring two highly-carded teams.

In short, the appointment isn't enough to put me off and a slice of the 7/2 looks worth taking.

La Liga tips: Read Dan Fitch's preview of this weekend's action