With the European season officially at an end, Football España will be reviewing each and every one of the La Liga sides and how they fared this season.
The League: 14th – 42 points
Copa del Rey: Second Round
Top Goalscorer: Javi Puado – 12
Top Assist: Alvaro Tejero, Jofre Carreras, Javi Puado – 4
Espanyol started off the season without last year’s top scorer Martin Braithwaite and with the very real prospect of Joan Garcia leaving for Arsenal. Manolo Gonzalez kept his job after a play-off final win last year, but the reality was that Espanyol looked rather short when they began the season – and so it more or less proved.
Gonzalez’s side worked hard, but often without reward in the first half of the season. After a nine-game run without a win, the rewards for maintaining faith in Gonzalez were looking somewhat bare too. Yet Espanyol continued to show a stubborn resolve on the pitch that reminded of Gonzalez, and that began to pay dividends in January. At times, Garcia simply refused to be beaten, and Espanyol followed his lead.
The arrival of Roberto Fernandez up front in January and the emergence of Urko Gonzalez in midfield changed the course of the team though, and a famous if controversial victory over Real Madrid in February set the tone of defiance for the remainder of the season. Los Pericos made life hard for themselves with a late losing streak, but huffed and puffed their way home on the final day of the season with a 2-0 win over already relegated Las Palmas.
Espanyol were not favoured to go down this season, but nor were they backed to be much higher in all honesty. Survival was a financial necessity this season, and it feels like staying in La Liga has given the club oxygen when it seemed like it was becoming tough to breathe.
Relying on Garcia’s goalkeeping so heavily is not exactly a plan to keep them up, but as with so many things this year, Gonzalez made it work. This team fed off spirit and stubbornness all season, and it served them to achieve their objectives. The feeling is that they will need more than just grit and organisation next year, but it feels like they have a manager that could stick around for a while.
Even the most bitter of Espanyol fans, following a move to Barcelona, would find it hard to argue otherwise. Unprompted, Gonzalez and Sporting Director Fran Garagarza both portioned Garcia with a significant chunk of the credit for keeping Espanyol up, individual praise unusual for a goalkeeper.
Garcia achieved feats of acrobacy and speed that had to be watched several times to be assimilated, and the fact that they were usually worth points made his season all the more impressive. The best goalkeeper in La Liga, and the best player at the RCDE Stadium too.
Arriving on loan from Union Berlin, the experienced Czech international is hard to miss with his bouncy ringlets flying around the the pitch. It is true that Alex Kral lost his spot in the side in the final month or two of the season, but for two thirds of it, he proved a tireless example to the rest of the team.
Simple but correct with his use of the ball, a source of frequent irritation for opposition midfielders and head of covert ball-robbing expeditions, Kral performed when few others were.
Crucial exception: Roberto Fernandez. Their season turned around when he arrived, and he scored just one less than their other three centre-forwards put together. Irvin Cardona (2), Alejo Veliz (4) and Walid Cheddira (1) all gave what they could, but in a team not blessed with goals, when opportunities came their way, all too often they did not return with the goods. This only increased the pressure on the rest of the team, and Garagarza has moved to try and resolve this problem already.
Another similar season in all likelihood. There is uncertainty over the ownership, and by proxy the budget. That said, the atmosphere in Cornella is that the pressure has lifted, and after beginning last season with a salary limit of just €8m, those woes are projected to ease.
They will of course be without Garcia in goal, but the €25m arriving from his sale should allow a little more money to strengthen elsewhere. In Garagarza, who oversaw many seasons of survival at Eibar, and Gonzalez, who cut is teeth in the lower divisions of Catalan football, they have a heart and cynicism that will hold them in good stead.
Of course, Espanyol’s academy tends to provide reasons for hope too. If Los Pericos can shore up the defence a little, and ensure they have sufficient goals, they will be in good hands. All the same, the losses of Joan Garcia, Roberto Fernandez and Urko (and hopefully not Puado) will be felt.
The post Espanyol Season in Review: Defiant in the face of disaster appeared first on Football España.
