The hyperbolic gap between the starters and substitutes of Espanyol

If Espanyol has something in these times of Segunda, for better or for worse, it is that their alignments are recited from memory. Old-fashioned. Even when the team suffers a casualty, so far mostly due to sanction, it is affordable to guess the name of the substitute. A practice that, during the worst streak of the season –With one point out of nine and only one victory in five games–, Vicente Moreno has not only maintained but has exaggerated it even more, until the triumph over Mallorca last Sunday proved him right.

The data does not lie. In the first six league games played in 2021 –In front of Las Palmas, Castellón, Girona, Rayo Vallecano, Lugo and Mallorca–, 11 players account for 86.7 percent of the minutes, specifically 5,113 ', while between the rest of the squad, 14 other footballers, share 13.3 percent left over from time. A scale that deliberately tips towards a gala team. In fact, in this period the distance between the eleventh most used Espanyol player –Miguelón Llambrich, who will be dismissed as of Saturday– and the next, Fran Mérida, is 198 minutes; and that the midfielder acted as a starter against Lugo due to Sergi Darder's sanction.

Diego López, Adrià Pedrosa, Raúl de Tomás, Javi Puado, Adrián Embarba, Keidi Bare, David López, Sergi Darder, Nico Melamed, Leandro Cabrera and Miguelón they make up 11 of those chosen, whose gap with respect to the rest of the players would be even greater if it were not for David and Darder having to play two games due to the accumulation of cautions.

On the opposite side of the balance are Oier Olazabal and Dídac Vilà, unpublished so far in 2021, or Matías Vargas, who has only participated in eight minutes. As well Álvaro Vadillo, Pol Lozano, Lluís López and Wu Lei, whose minutes have been surpassed by Landry Dimata (54 ') in just one week. However, almost everyone has had their chance to be of the game at some point during the season, starting with a Óscar Gil who will see his current 138 minutes increased exponentially In the next weeks.