Thursday Football Tips: Back a 9/1 Barca Bet Builder against Villarreal

• Barca haven't conceded a league goal at home this season
• Villarreal have the best defensive record in La Liga
• Dembele has 12 shots on target this season

Barcelona return to action against Villarreal needing a bounce back after losing El Clasico and top spot in the table at the weekend.

Xavi's side have a tough run of fixtures coming up as well, starting with European chasers Villarreal - who won at the Nou Camp last year.

It's been a fortress for Barca this season though with three wins, a draw and no away defeats - not even an away goal scored so far!

Unai Emery's side have been slightly up-and-down but ended a run of four league games without a win by beating Osasuna on Monday.

It's a quick turnaround but Emery's side are built on solid foundations with the league's best defensive record of just three goals conceded - and six clean sheets in nine shows how tough they are to break down.

It's a different story keeping clean sheets at Barca - although they did have to grind out a 1-0 win over Celta Vigo in their last home league fixture.

The bookies don't fancy a grind though, with under 2.5 goals looking a big price at 2.4529/20 given we've got the best two defences in the division playing.

It's always tough backing unders with the talent Barca have going forward, so for tonight we may take the safer play and add under 3.5 goals to the mix for our Bet Builder.

The Yellow Submarine struggle to score, but could keep this close as five of their last six away games have been 0-0 at half-time. So we'll take the draw after 45 minutes here.

Throwing in a couple of shots on target plays as we like to do in this column, Arnaut Danjuma is the man for Villarreal right now as he found his form again after injury in some style against Osasuna.

He was pretty consistent at hitting the target last season, doing so in 14 of 23 games in their last league campaign.

For Barca, Ousmane Dembele can find a way through the Villarreal defence to at least hit the target - as he has done 12 times this season.

He had a lean spell after a fast start, but with improved displays against Celta and Inter Milan his confidence and pace will make him a danger at a bigger price than some of his other big-name team-mates.