A poisoned candy | Football

El Leganés, with goal problems and after more than ten months without winning at home, visits a Villarreal who has played at home before teams from the lower zone

After chaining two defeats in his two consecutive departures to the Wanda Metropolitano and San Mamés, Villarreal will try to resume the good path in a match that, a priori, seems conducive to it. The group that directs Javi Calleja receives the Leganés, a team that is matched to points with the player and has a serious problem with the goal. The team that now directs Javier Aguirre is the worst scorer of Primera with 19 goals in 26 days. And in case he didn't have enough problems facing the door, the movements that have been in his squad since the start of the year have left his attack turned into little less than a plot.

The first to leave was En-Nesyri, for whom Sevilla paid the 20 million euros contained in its termination clause in mid-January And with the winter market already closed, Dembélé's long-term injury caused Barcelona to opt for Martin Braithwaite to cover the loss of the French striker, also paying the 18 million Danish clause.

In just one month, the Leganés he had suddenly run out of his two offensive references, authors of ten of the nineteen goals that the Madrid team has scored in the league. And the worst part is that the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) did not allow it to go to the market to find a replacement under the regulation.

A replacement that, coincidentally, could have been a Villarreal player. As the newspaper As reported this Thursday, the Castellon club had agreed with Leganés the transfer of Carlos Bacca for the remainder of the season with the intention that the Colombian had the minutes that Calleja is not giving him, but the RFEF position backed the operation.

Thus, the Leganés appears in the Ceramics Stadium after chaining three exits without scoring a single goal and entrusting himself to the smell of Guido Carrillo and the precision of Óscar Rodríguez in the direct free. The Madrid team also adds ten months without winning at home. The last time he did it was on day 36 of the last league, when he won 0-3 in the Sánchez Pizjuán.

Mind you, the team of Aguirre has shown that it can make anyone's afternoon bitter and has scored in visits to teams such as Valencia, Real Sociedad or Atlético. A fact to be taken into account by a Villarreal who, precisely, has lost his only two home matches against teams that were placed in relegation positions, Celta and Espanyol. A warning for navigators.

Calleja: “We need to win the games at home”

Villarreal coach Javi Calleja, meanwhile, said Friday before the media that his team you need to win every game at home “to achieve the goal” to access European positions and they must “forget the last two games” in which the team suffered two home losses.

“We only have in mind to win and we are focused on Leganés,” said Calleja, who believes that a victory this Sunday would put them fully in the fight by European posts, his goal of the season.

Regarding the circumstance of not being able to be on the bench for sanction, he indicated that it is “strange to be outside”, and that it is the first time that happens. “If there are two games, since the coaches fall at least two games, we will have to accept it and not give it more importance. We have to rely on the technical team and the work we have done throughout the week,” he added. .

“From outside it looks different than on the pitch“, said the coach, who will try to live the duel with the same passion with which he usually does and trusting that his players perform at the same level as always.

On Leganés, Calleja points out that it is a rival “very intense and very competitive despite being in a very complicated situation.” Despite being in relegation positions “face each game as if it were a final“.