Uggh …

By: Cesar | November 16th, 2008

That was bad. That was pathetic. That was … Koeman-like?

Ok, maybe I’m going too far.

Last night’s 3-2 loss to Villa’s Sporting Gijon was a game we had to have. We can ill afford to lose points, what with this brutal schedule ahead of us in the league …

11/23 - Sevilla
11/30 - Betis
12/6 - Barcelona
12/14 - Espanyol
12/21 - Real Madrid
1/4 - Atletico
1/11 - Villarreal
1/18 - Athletic Bilbao

Factor in Copa Del Rey, UEFA Cup and international matches for our top players and we’re talking a glut of games in a short period of time. (In fact, the club’s working on getting some match dates fixed. As it stands now, VCF play Brujas in the UEFA Cup 12/4 and Barca 12/6. Way too close …)

Games against the likes of Sporting Gijon and Racing Santander are supposed to be won, not lost in embarrassing fashion.

So what went wrong?

How much time do you have?

- Renan was shaky. I am not convinced by the Brazilian ‘keeper. Where’s Santiago Canizares when you need him?
- Moretti is a piece of garbage. Excuse my language, but why is he even on the team? Couldn’t we just use Asier Del Horno in this spot? Or bring Curro Torres back from the Mestalla janitorial staff to man this spot? The Italian ‘defender’ is an absolute terror at defending … as in terrible …
- Villa just didn’t look like he was into the match. Maybe his heart strings were tugged too tight by the match against his old club. Or maybe Gijon did a good job of marking him. Whatever. He could have done better.

Overall, the team looked out of sync. No one produced a stellar performance. And even though a penalty and late Mata goal put us back into the game, we were never ‘in’ it …

A full run-through of the match can be found here (not goal.com by the way …)

I only caught the last 20 minutes of the match since Valencia’s not valued here in the United States. Whatever …

Afterwards, coach Unai Emery was pissed.

“I’m not looking for anyone to blame. If there’s anyone, then it’s me,” he said while frothing at the mouth.

“At 2-1 and 3-2 down, we’d got back into the game and the attitude of the team cannot be questioned, although we have to find the best ways to win. Something is failing,” Emery said, pounding his fist into the lecturn.

“We first have to lift ourselves up and then put this defeat behind us. We were doing well until the last two weeks and we have to get back to where we were,” Unai said as he drank a swig of Johnnie Walker.

The result was only our second league defeat of the season, although our first came in our previous home game at the Mestalla when we crashed and burned 4-2 against Racing Santander.

Emery added: “It’s been a similar game to that against Racing where our opponents have been very effective. They have been well-organized and that’s given them the win.”

With that, Emery predicted a Brock Lesnar victory in the night’s UFC match and walked off.

David Villa was also upset. But he thinks we’ve got nothing to worry about.

“These are difficult games and we have to learn from them and find a solution. It is not a big problem because we cannot go from being good to bad so quickly,” he said, dabbing tears of sentimentality from his eyes.

“I don’t think that it’s a matter of fitness or lack of organization. We’ve tried to go forward all game and we dominated the last half hour.”

Villa netted his 100th goal in La Liga, but that didn’t help in a game that Villa felt Valencia could have, and should have, won.

“It was a very even game. We could not find our rhythm from the start and we know that we have made mistakes in both games,” he continued, adding that he never played for Santander but holds a special place in his heart for them as he won Europe with them in FIFA ‘95.

“We’ve given away soft goals and it’s then been difficult to turn things around. They were very good. They closed us down and they were always at my back giving me no space.”

So that’s that.

Not to sound like a fatalist, but we need to pick things up - and quick.

We were riding a nice wave for a few weeks there. Now, the problems that weren’t resolved in the off-season are once again apparent … a shaky defense, an unreliable ‘keeper, no one to support Villa, a so-so midfield.

We’ve won through grit, ingenuity and sheer class the last few months.

We’ve played decent football. Players have stepped up, filled in and done more than they’ve been asked to do.

Now, we’re faltering some.

And Unai Emery and the captains of this squad need to figure out a way to resolve the situation and get Valencia CF steered right.

Or else we’re in for a long few weeks …