Espanyol v Villareal

By: Armando | October 20th, 2008

Alright, this is getting annoying, not as annoying as losing all those games last season but almost I’d say. At least we’re playing well. Sure, this makes 5 games without full points since we defeat Huelva on matchday 1, but the most annoying bit is that other than a blowout loss to Sevilla we’ve been a really tough team to play against and had chances to win in all the other games. We were up a goal late in the Barcelona derby before conceding. We were up twice to Real Madrid before Raul single-footedly drew them even. And Getafe? When you can’t bother getting full points against a squad you should be better than, well you’d better shut up shop.

This leads me to the game at hand. Espanyol v Villareal. I won’t get too bogged down with the matchday report, there are plenty of those sights around and anyways I’m pretty bad at it so I won’t even try. Plus you come here to the offside for analysis not data regurgitation, right? Ok, this result will haunt for awhile. End of analysis. If Raul Tamudo slots that penalty, it’s full points for the good. Diego Lopez guessed right and slapped it away and yes, the penalty was rather dubious but having not gotten two calls in the first half there was a bit of cumulative refereeing going on.

Other than that Villareal had most of the possession and had clearer chances sure, but while it gives the impression that we were dominated by a top three team, it speaks to the manner in which Tintin has us playing. Our counter-attack is working. Luis Garcia is tracking back and getting other players involved, our centerbacks are strong and well-positioned, our fitness is up and I don’t see the lack of energy late like I did last year. New starters like Roman, Sergio Sanchez and Nene have done well. Lil’ Buddha runs the show and shows every week why he’s still one of the great players in the league. Tamudo on the other hand, looks well past his sell date. I’m not trying to stir up craziness, he’s the captain and the greatest Espanyol player arguably in history, but since the broken arm last year he is clearly not the same. He had some great runs and his energy level was up against Villareal but he’s usually a deadly finisher and a master penalty taker and I’ll say this. His approach on that penalty was weak, lacked pace and aggression, and his body language throughout said it all.

We’re better than I thought, certainly better than 9th in the League where we stand, but we’ve done extremely well when you consider the stretch of games we’ve been on playing 5 of the 8 teams that are directly in front of us. I think it’s time to start tacking on the points against the minnows and getting healthy again.