Valencia CF coach Unai Emery has lost the team and there is no other option than to let him go in the summer and appoint a new coach. The players he brought to the match, the players he started and the formation he used were wrong and some bad decisions, other bad luck and we once again loose at home to a relegation zone team that has lost most of its matches and to make matters worse we loose with Real Zaragoza playing more than 70 minutes with one less player.
Yeah sure the penalty was a huge mistake by the referee and shouldn't have happened in the first place, it was as big mistake as one can make and the referee should suffer the consequences, but that doesn't excuse the team for the loss.
Valencia CF started brightly, controlling the match from the start and very soon came the first goal courtesy of Soldado and Pablo Hernandez. Pablo has been in rather poor form for some time now, but today he had a great match, unfortunately the rest of the players had a poor one. Pablo scored in the 11th minute to give Valencia CF the lead. Valencia CF kept attacking and forming actions, but our attackers kept missing and missing. For example Aduriz missed a huge chance from few meters, later on him and Jonas would miss several chances between them.
In fact Aritz Aduriz best contribution was being fouled, that led to the dismissal of Pablo Alvarez for Real Zaragoza.
At this point it seems to me, if things don't improve drastically over the next week or two we may be looking at a possible coach change within the season in order to save 3rd position.
For example starting with Albelda was a bad decision as he has been in rather poor form for the past two weeks and starting all 3 of out attacker, but not bringing Paco was a mistake and where did Maduro go? I haven't heard that he got injured, so him missing in the squad is a bit strange.
This would have been the perfect occasion to start Maduro and Piatti and Pablo to get their fair share of football and to have a more motivated squad from the start with players wanting to prove themselves.
I would have probably even started Paco with Soldado with Pablo and Piatti on the wings and Parejo and Maduro in the middle. If things don't go well, then bring in Jonas for Paco. I mean this should have been an easy match to win.
Valencia (1): Guaita, Barragán, Rami, Dealbert, Mathieu (Jordi Alba, m.62); Albelda (Feghouli, m.70), Parejo, Pablo (Piatti, m.82), Jonas; Aduriz and Soldado.
Zaragoza (2): Roberto, Álvarez, Paredes, Lánzaro, Abraham (Luis García, m.75); Pinter, Dujmovic, Apoño, Juan Carlos (Zuculini, m.50); Lafita y Aranda (Obradovic, m.64).
Goals: 1-0, m.9: Pablo; 1-1, m.23: Apoño, pp; 1-2, m.77: Apoño.
Player Ratings:
Guaita 5 - Didn't have anything to do for all of the match, except for the penalty and goal. Should have done better for Zaragoza's second goal.
Barragan 6 - Good match by Barragan with dangerous runs and crosses in the penalty area, once again started brightly, but faded off a bit in the second half.
Rami 5.5 - Didn't have anything to do and wasn't at fault at all for any of the goals.
Dealbert 5 (FotM) - Unlucky to be the victim for the penalty, but guilty for the second Zaragoza goal, as it was his mistake that lead to the goal.
Mathieu 6 - Didn't have any defensive troubles and was free to roam forward and provided several good crosses to the penalty area.
Pablo 8 (MotM) - Man of the match with a great performance. Scored the goal, provided countless passes and crosses and was all over the field.
Albelda 6 - Decent match from the veteran, but nothing special that can really help the team in these kind of situations. Maybe the contract extension was a bit premature as he's been really been on a downward spiral.
Parejo 6 - Fed the ball to the forward players with good precision and was controlling the midfield great, but wasn't able to produce a ppiercing pass or some cross that would make the difference.
Jonas 5 - Found himself in good position thought the match, but misses all of them. He could have scored at least one goal had he been more accurate with his shots.
Soldado 7 - Good performance by Soldado, provided the assist to the goal and very active all over the pitch, had few chances, but couldn't quite convert them, way better than his fellow attackers.
Aduriz 5 - Some big misses from Aduriz and right now doesn't look certain if he is going to stay at Valencia CF. He's had chances to score, but he just misses way too often.
Subs:
Alba 6 - Replaced Mathieu and continued with a similar fashion, wasn't really better or more effective than Mathieu, but did a good job overall.
Feghuoli 5.5 - Few good moves and passes, but failed to produce anything of bigger significance.
Piatti N/A - Not enough time.
