It never ceases to amaze – and for a few weeks, not pleasantly – a Espanyol who assumed with extraordinary naturalness the most traumatic descent in his history, which adapted in record time to the peculiarities of the Second Division and that is still counted as the team that more days has held the leadership. But what in this 2021 he is demolishing all those achievements like a house of cards and that, if he is not able to urgently reorient his current drift, he is in danger of becoming un ocean liner –As defined by not a few, due to its enormous budget and infrastructure– that collides with the largest iceberg in its 120 years of existence.
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* Data updated as of March 6, 2021
His tie at the meeting on Friday before Oviedo (1-1), which started with 200 fans cheering on the outskirts and ended with ten players on the pitch and the courage on the ground, only confirms the regression of a team that has gone from cruising to running out of fuel like a barge in the middle of the ocean. The “this point will be good if we win the next game” stops making sense when that victory almost never comes, only three times so far this calendar year, for the 13 that had been accumulating before Christmas.
And it is the case that those lost points like drops of water in the sea will no longer return: a truism, yes, that in reality it is not so much when compared the imminent calendar –Mirandés, Logroñés, Castellón, Fuenlabrada and Albacete are the next rivals– with which it will arrive later –Leganés and Almería followed–.
The team coach was greeted with flares.
Gorka Leiza (Diario AS)
The current dynamics of Espanyol unfailingly leaves a trace in Vicente Moreno, little interventionist in his alignments and, for a while now, without fortune also in many of its changes. And that against Oviedo, despite the numerical inferiority, they were offensive in vocation. Perhaps his most daring bet of a season in which, Despite the average quality of the squad compared to the majority of opponents, the approaches are being more reactive than proactive. It worked until it stopped.
But the bad income statement is not spared, far from it, Players, whose self-demand can be very high, obviously everyone aspires to the best of the end, but it is that Caesar's wife should not only be, but appear so. That is to say, externalize in many cases one more point of competitiveness, claw, personality when things go wrong. An argument that has been repeated ad nauseam in recent years. Perhaps in the first round Espanyol was excessively entrusted to talent, sparks of genius, not always enough to add three at a time. Responsibility of the technician, of the staff and, by elevation, of those in charge of planning it.
Reactive approaches, sparks of talent to win, worked until they stopped
Ultimately, and at the expense of what this Sunday Almería achieves in Girona -A strange and ephemeral bed companion of the parakeets, who will wish their victory-, follow the parakeet squad in time to fulfill its objective, direct promotion. To give a sharp, determined and, above all and above all, urgent turn of the wheel. Because from the bow of the ocean liner the iceberg is already beginning to be seen. And to contemplate it only a few more meters, without acting, would make the shipwreck inevitable.