Peter Lim was hailed as the Valencia saviour shortly after he bought the club's majority shares as well as clearing it's substantial debts in 2014, yet that has been the only good thing from Valencia since then. In the last three years Los Che have had six different managers have coupled with two successive 12th place finish . Unrest, financial struggles, fans protest and on-field inconsistencies have come to represent the once Great Spanish side who won the League and UEFA Cup in 2003 under Rafa Benitez.
This appears to be a thing of the past this season as the club has been purged of both directors and players with 16 players sold in the summer and seven signed. In their place came Mateu Alemany (former president of Real Mallorca) as General Director incharge of the daily running of the club. In the dugout, former Sporting Gijon player and coach Marcelino was recruited to turn things around. On the field , everything appears to have changed positively with Los Che 2nd in the table three points behind leaders Barcelona (ahead of the two Madrid clubs) , unbeaten thus far after nine games, scoring 25 league goals (only Barcelona have scored more ) a record which is their best season start in 70 years despite having played heavyweights like Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Athletico Madrid and Sevilla as well only being behind for eight minutes after all these games.
Under the former Villarreal coach, Valencia sold the likes of Negredo, Nani, Perez and Diego Alves for a combined sum of €14m and signing such players like Kondogbia, Guedes, Gabriel as well as keeping hold of captain Parejo who was linked to Barcelona all season, Carlos Solder and Luis Gaya who have all been impressive. In total the Spanish side spent a net of €21m having spent €35m on new signings . Under Marcelino's watch , striker Rodrigo has already scored five times (earning a call up to the Spanish national team) which is the same number of goals he scored the whole of last season, the same with Simon Zaza who has scored eight (one behind Lionel Messi) and was awarded the League's best player of September . This is not the first time Marcelino will be working wonders with constrained budgets having led Villarreal from the second division to the Semi-final of the Europa League as well as leading an unknown Recreativo Huelva from the second division to a La Liga 8th place finish. Under his belt, Valencia now play in the old traditional 4-4-2 formation with emphasis on intensity and focus on quick recovery of the ball immediately possession is lost so as to quickly counter the opponent as well as the use of the wings to stretch opponents and create spaces for thier attackers. In goal, Neto has shown flashes of his old best after being in Buffon's shadows, Guedes has been so impressive that PSG is unlikely to let him leave on loan again next season having scored three goals and assisted five already with Geoffrey Kondogbia not left out displaying his ball winning abilities and shielding the defence.
Though the league still has a long way to go, their is no doubting that Valencia are on the right path with the new board and Coaching staff considering the excitement and optimism of the fans.
No comments:
Post a Comment