The painful start of the competition is being a continuation of the last two league games of last season, with the blushing ridiculous against Leganés and Granada. The straw that broke the camel's back has been the two slips against Cádiz and Alavés, with painful sensations, a punch that is not even sensed and a general unease among the fans. However, it is necessary to go much further back in time to verify that the deficiencies of the Athletic They come from afar and that with the return to the League due to the coronavirus the downward trend has been accentuated.
In the past course those of Garitano they chained 10 games in a row without winning, with losses as striking as against Osasuna. But a certain silver lining came with the arrival of March, with the consecutive wins against Villarreal and Valladolid, which closed the wound at least momentarily.
But with the competitive resumption the weaknesses increased. Two consecutive defeats against Real Madrid and Sevilla reflected the domestic impotence, even harder with the setbacks against Leganés and Granada. It should also be noted that there were games to highlight, because they stood up to Atlético de Madrid and Barça, they beat Betis and Mallorca and the lions signed a round match against Valencia, with long-awaited benefits and that now do not appear in the least. The duel won against Levante at home was not bad either.
San Mamés is no longer the same
But during this period, as before with the ten fasted games of triumphs, it seemed that the team was dragging difficulties. It did not flow and in San Mamés too many points were allowed to escape, there were even half a dozen games that were lost in Bilbao, when in the previous year the rojiblanco stadium had become almost impregnable. To the defensive weakness was added the drought of Williams, not entirely attributable to your gambling, Muniain He gave details but did not complete the task, the midfielders hardly gave creation, the centers were of poor quality and the predictability of the game was recurrent. At least Raul Garcia showed the best filmmaker version of his career.
Poor baggage
Taking a look at the last 15 games, 11 of the resumption plus 4 of the current campaign, the rojiblancos have added eight defeats: Barça, Real Madrid, Sevilla, Leganés, Granada -on two occasions-, Cádiz and Alavés. The victories have been five -Mallorca, Betis, Valencia, Levante and Eibar- and the tables have been signed against Atlético de Madrid and Eibar. The goals scored have been 14 while those received have reached 19. The defensive reliability of not so many dates ago does not go through its best moment. And in attack the feeling is more worrying. And that Cadiz finished with nine players and Alavés, with ten. Not to believe.
In poor shape
It gives the feeling that having reached the Cup final after having concentrated efforts in several matches has hampered too much the subsequent performance of a team that is experiencing the moment of form of some of its referential elements. In addition to Muniain and Williams, in this new garter boot it is not very fine Raul Garcia, neither Yuri, conditioned by his pubic injury, Dani garcia he is not very buoyant, Cap It is not the one from the beginning of last year …
Too many problems for a set where Garitano did not hit the key. His latest statements do not seem to have contributed to his improvement and tactical novelties are not intuited. Covid-19 has also made it more difficult for the coach, who must find answers to the generalized stagnation, but it does not seem likely that his catechism will change much. Maybe it's time to renew it.