Granada receives Elche this Saturday in the debut of Rubén Torrecilla on the rojiblanco bench after the dismissal of Robert Moreno, in a clash that the locals face in great need of points and the people of Elche willing to meet again with a victory and move away from relegation.
Granada’s run of nine games without a win, with six defeats in the last seven days, caused the dismissal of Robert Moreno and Torrecilla, a coach who has promoted from the Granada subsidiary, could turn his interim in the first team into a stay until the end of the season, if he is able to win and convince this Saturday.
Torrecilla, who like his assistant Diego Mainz is a former Granada player and has been at the club for years, has brought new airs and freshness to a dressing room that had entered a very negative spiral and now hopes to ratify with victories the improvement of the team that is intended with your arrival.
This Saturday it will be seen if he also introduces many changes in a starting eleven that was already very changeable from one game to another in recent days with Robert Moreno, with the forecast that he will bet as much as possible on more veteran players and with more time in the entity.
Among them will not be the media Ángel Montoro nor the Frenchman Maxime Gonalons, who like the Colombian side Santiago Arias are absent due to injury.
Both the team in its last games, and Torrecilla throughout its career, have alternated the defense of three central defenders and two lanes with the usual four defenders, so one of the big doubts for the starting eleven is the drawing that going to choose
It is foreseeable that players such as the Portuguese central defender Domingos Duarte, who is suspended against Valencia due to suspension, the attacking midfielder Rubén Rochina and the striker Jorge Molina, will regain ownership.
Elche, in turn, faces the game with the need to score against a direct rival, after seeing the comfortable difference it maintained with the relegation zone reduced in the last two days.
The defeats against Levante and Barcelona have slowed down the progression of the Elche team, which wants to flee from danger as soon as possible to avoid a championship final as stressful as the last one.
The people from Alicante have an advantage of four points over Granada, a team that marks the permanence zone and with which they tied (0-0) in the first round, so a defeat would put them squarely in the fight for salvation .
His coach, Francisco Rodríguez, recovers Pedro Bigas for this match, who was absent on the last day due to muscular discomfort, Colombian winger Helibelton Palacios, absent in the last three games due to a torn hamstring, and midfielder Gerard Gumbau, who missed the visit of Barcelona by sanction.
In addition, midfielder Tete Morente has also overcome some physical problems that he has dragged on during the week and will be in the squad.
The main casualty is that of Argentine midfielder Javier Pastore, who will serve the first of four suspension games tomorrow after his expulsion against Barcelona. Pastore’s absence, however, does not affect Francisco’s plans at all, since the Argentine was barely participating in the last few games.
Although the line-up is unknown, everything points to the return of Bigas to the axis of defense and Gumbau to the midfield, despite the good level shown by Raúl Guti against Barcelona.