The watch. Espanyol leaves matchday four with two points and one goal in favor. Worse even than the team that started the 2019-20 season with David Gallego and ended up descending with Francisco Rufete. But the sensations are far from the same, although the numbers accompany him. This Espanyol transmits, believes in what it does, is with the coach and has competed face to face in every game, with less luck and worse success. The logical thing is that Vicente Moreno unites his group, finds greater stability in the matches and that demonstrated quality of the attack begins to translate into goals. Time to time.
From the violin to the lung. That time that was so crucial against Atlético. The clock was the great protagonist and played against a Spanish Exhausted. The blue and white began with all the members of their band intoned, like a symphony orchestra, with Darder imparting the score and each player tuning. Of the shots of Embarba (what two hands of Oblak) to the auction of RdT or the inland passes of Morlanes, Pedrosa's races or the great first part of an injured Calero, which had to be replaced at half-time. The parrots could attack with violins (Darder) as well as with drums (Embarba). But Espanyol's bellows deflated, and the team ended up without instruments, playing an acoustic at the top of their lungs, without air to defend in the 98th minute.
From the stands to the grass. Before that fateful outcome, RCDE Stadium was a party. The blue and white jerseys and the 'scarf' as the team entered recovered past images. Hermoso got the applause and Luis Suárez and Griezmann, once citizen rivals, the loudest boos. The athletic defense sang on more than one occasion, but Espanyol has not yet found its best work in attack: they broke the drought and scored after 310 minutes without doing so, the second worst streak in history, but again set pieces came to the rescue of a team that lacks knowing how to attack efficiently. That is one of the anomalies so far.
Morlanes and Kondogbia.
ALBERT GEA
The reading. There are also 'buts' to the blue and white game, especially in a second half in which he was locked up by Atlético. With the debut of Recasens (19 years old), already without Morlanes in the field, Moreno chose to remove a midfielder to put a forward. But that 4-4-2 didn't turn out to be very productive. Loren and Dimata, who ended up in attack, failed to give that unease to the team or create danger. With that bitter feeling the meeting was dying, with which the changes did not add up to what was expected unlike Atlético. With Cabrera as a soloist, the Blue and Whites could only bail out water.
Key future. My impression is that the step taken by Vicente Moreno will be crucial during the season. The midfield Morlanes, Darder and Melendo (Herrera will play when he returns) must be the cornerstone of a Espanyol that looks to the one in the first half against Atlético, with longer possessions, playing on the inside, avoiding excess centers on the sides. But it is not easy to marry everything into a varied, wide squad, but with dysfunctions, where there are no centrals with great clairvoyance to overcome lines and where RdT also has its peculiarities like nine. Espanyol will depend on that evolution. The clock keeps ticking.