Real Valladolid will look to make amends for what coach Jose Luis Mendilibar felt was the worst display of his tenure.

On Thursday, they welcome Almeria to the Estadio Jose Zorrilla.

Mendilibar, who took over at Valladolid in 2006, left his side in no doubt as to how he felt about their performance during Sunday's 2-0 defeat to his former club Athletic Bilbao, describing the game as a "disaster".

"It looked so bad from the start that I was going to call the bench. I saw the last five minutes in the press room," said Mendilibar, who was serving a touchline ban at San Mames.

"If we don't give it everything on the pitch and are not ourselves, a change of system or players is not worth anything.

"It's the worst performance since I arrived at Valladolid.

"We didn't shoot. We didn't string two passes together until the 42nd minute. You cannot win in life like that. We were lucky enough to be 0-0 at the break. It was a disaster."

Valladolid captain Alberto Marcos tried to take some positives from the match, no matter how tenuous.

"It's good that it came in the third game of the season, it gives us time to react," the 34-year-old said.

"It wasn't a game to forget, but one to learn from our mistakes. We know that if we fight and we battle is difficult to beat us, but if we don't it's a different matter."

Valladolid's defeat left them in 13th place in the standings with three points from three games, although their one victory did come at the expense of in-form Atletico Madrid.

In contrast Almeria have enjoyed a flying start to the season under new coach Gonzalo Arconada and find themselves in second spot after beating Athletic and Malaga, plus drawing with Valencia - the current league leaders.

Arconada, who led Numancia to the Segunda Division title last term before succeeding Unai Emery at Almeria, revealed the mood in the camp has been good in the lead-up to the trip to Valladolid, but is not anticipating an easy game at the Jose Zorrilla.

"The players have given me very good feelings today in training, which has been full of quality and very intense," he said on Tuesday before switching his focus to Thursday's opponents.

"It will be a very complicated and difficult game because Valladolid are an uncomfortable team to play against, and play with a lot of intensity in both defence and attack.

"They are an opponent different to the others. They have good players who can decide a game, but above all they are characterised by this intensity which makes them different."

He added: "It's not going to be anything like the game we played against Malaga on Sunday. It will be very different."

Arconada has called up Santiago Acasiete, Michel and Miguel Nieto for the match, with Jose Ortiz, Mane, Pablo Piatti, Guilherme, Iriney Santos and Esteban Solari missing out for various reasons.