BarcelonaDiego Martínez’s time at Espanyol has ended. The defeat in Montilivi was the final straw for Chen Yansheng’s patience, forced to move on due to his team’s lack of evolution and reaction. The person chosen to replace him will be Luis García, a former player for Espanyol between 2005 and 2011. The Asturian, who since last summer managed Internacional de Madrid, Real Madrid’s third team, will return to Catalonia less of a year after leaving Barcelona, where he directed the youth A de la Damm. Despite his inexperience on the bench, Espanyol believe in him as the ideal shocker to refloat a team that needs a mental and football boost.
“The best thing about Barcelona is to be from Espanyol”, a phrase that the Asturian made his own, perfectly sums up the white-and-blue feeling of a Luis García to whom much of the stand has long since claims He himself, in fact, has admitted on repeated occasions that he would like to manage Espanyol. With him, Chen Yansheng has found a new shield in the face of a stand disenchanted with the game and the results obtained with Diego Martínez. The Galician, another bet that has not worked.
Espanyol has been a patient in the ICU for months with vital signs below minimum. That the white-and-blue team has only lived in relegation positions in one of the first 26 League matches despite their sharp game proposal is almost a miracle that can only be explained by the surprising success of their two tips and, especially, for the demerits of some rivals who have done even worse. The only good news for the white-and-blues is that they still have a margin, 11 games, to avoid another relegation. For this, however, they need to correct the worrying football involution that the team is experiencing, which keeps turning on warning signs and which is unable to correct its shortcomings.
The risk of becoming an elevator team is a real threat for a club whose future is at stake in the next two months. Although Chen felt indebted to Diego Martínez, for not having provided him in time with the reinforcements promised in the summer, the entrepreneur understands that it may be cheaper for him to terminate him now to bear the cost of a new relegation .
“The moment of negativity that accompanies us is normal, after four consecutive defeats, but we will get up and get out of it”, said the trainer after falling to Montilivi. The club ratified it during the stoppage for the World Cup, aware that coach changes are not always the ideal solution. The precedent of the 2019-20 academic year, with four different coaches, is still recent.
Offensive arguments wasted
Diego Martínez experienced a turbulent summer in which Espanyol shook up the squad but did not close the sales that would have allowed him to obtain the expected reinforcements in time. However, he had a stoppage of a month and a half to work on a team that, far from growing, seems to evolve with the passing of the days. Despite having football arguments to propose creative and offensive football from the middle of the field forward, such as Darder, Melamed, Denis Suárez or Puado, Espanyol remains a reactive team, which plays to see them coming, which hopes that they will be the rivals who move the card and who, too often, enters too late in the matches.
The fragility they have been dragging since the beginning of the season has invited the white-and-blues (the third team with the most goals in Primera) to be more and more terrible with the ball. The captain admits it, a Sergi Darder lucid like few when it comes to analyzing the team’s shortcomings: “We are not well, it is a reality, we are not getting anything done, and this means that we do not have the necessary confidence to do according to what things We’ve been saying for a long time that we have to take a step forward and we haven’t succeeded, but we have no other choice but to continue united.” Translated: Espanyol prioritizes not fitting in, even if that means sacrificing the talent it has up top. Abusing the direct game is not paying off.
The most worrying thing, since the start of the League, are the sensations: Espanyol has a hard time proposing and has almost never been superior to the rival. The six victories he has accumulated are by the minimum, tight games that, in many cases, are not decided until the end.
Data that can be explained, in large part, by the constant disconnections in attack of the fifth team that has the fewest shots among the three poles of the championship: 92 times, 33 of which have ended in goals. Espanyol converts one out of three shots, a surprisingly high effectiveness. At Montilivi he only shot once between the three posts, in the 74th minute, when he found Braithwaite’s goal. The Dane was also the author of the only goal against Valladolid, in the 87th minute, with Diego Martínez’s second shot on goal. Against Celta, they only forced Villar to block a shot a few times. A completely insufficient offensive production against direct rivals in the fight for permanence who, thanks to more intent, have obtained three valuable victories. Three defeats for Espanyol that show the way forward: to win, you need more courage.