What Was Emery Thinking?!?
By: Cesar | September 18th, 2008A decent win today against a pretty poor Maritimo side in the opening leg of the first round of the UEFA Cup, 1-0 on a goal by Fernando Morientes.
The 32-year old striker evaded numerous challenges from the Maritimo defense after just 12 minutes to fire home. Morientes was part of a physically imposing forward line on the night, paired with Serbian Nikola Zigic. Angulo and Pablo supplied the bullets from the flanks, while Brazilian midfielder Edu got his first start of the season, alongside Albelda.
Our star, David Villa, sat out the game. Good call by coach Unai Emery.
But then, for some weird reason, Emery got a case of the Koemans and decided to insert El Guaje into the latter stretches of the game.
What happens? Villa gets a strong challenge onto his knee and injures himself. The Valencia medical team will look at his right knee tomorrow to assess the extent of the injury.
Why??
Why put Villa into the game with 10 minutes to go? I understand Emery wanted to put the tie away then and there. I understand Villa was the best option at striker.
But in this game? At that time?
Look, I understand he wanted to win. Villa almost scored the decisive goal. After an immediate booking, he curled a long range shot just past the post.
But what if he’s injured now? What if his knee is screwed up badly and he’s out for 2-4 weeks? What then? Zigic? Morientes?
This is where lack of depth comes into play. This is why we all wanted Valencia to be more aggressive
in the transfer market.
But barring that, why did Emery insert Villa into the game?
I am hoping this is nothing more than a small injury.
If it’s not, Emery will rue the day he inserted the leading scorer of Euro 2008 into a meaningless UEFA Cup game in September.
Category: Team News
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Comments
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you don’t coach football wondering about what ifs, Villa could be injured in any match at any time. Emery put in Villa because Moro was tired and still has to be the “reserve” striker on Sunday and Valencia’s offense was dried up and needed some enthusiasm. Villa will take hits like he took today regularly and he will still play the majority of the games this season.
Posted from
United States
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I absolutely disagree John. It was totally idiotic of Emery to insert Villa at that point in the game, it served no purpose. I’d have rather seen Juan Soler put in up front instead of Villa. Absolutely stupid of Emery
Posted from
United States -
Hi, for those of you that missed it,you were lucky.One of the worst performances I have seen from the club.One short spell of magic from Morientes produced the goal and there were some good tries from Pablo and that was it.Most of the attacking came from Funchal and Renan had some tricky shots to save.Valencia spent more time passing to the opponents than each other.They all seemed desperate to get rid of the ball immediately and so it went anywhere…schoolboy stuff.By far the worst player was Zigic who did nothing but trip himself up and gaze about in amazement,there is an expression ‘long streak of piss’ and thats him.Emery was late with his changes Zigic should have gone after 20 mins. Joaquin could have made a big difference had he played because he has some muscle and he knows how to take the ball down to the goal instead of constant booting upfield and seeing the ball brought back.Funchal looked like a football team, Valencia did not. Caesar mentioned the opposition in this event. Five days ago I saw one of the best games of football I’ve seen the Liga match Seville 4 Sporting 3
Kanoutie,Fabiano and Capel from Seville absolutely magic
Constant shots on target all the time. That is the sort of standard we have to reach. If Valencia play like this,they will lose on Sunday against Osasuna who have always been bad news for Valencia even when they had a great team.Osasuna have so far drawn 1-1 at home to Villareal(put the scares into Man U this week) and 1-1
away to Mallorca. It wont be easy but maybe the Mestalla crowd can egg them on……..Adios, AlmendrasPosted from
Spain -
From what I read the minute Villa came on he attacked fiercely, so if that’s the case, I think it was a good decision to bring him on. If Villa had scored and hadn’t gotten injured, we’d be thinking that Emery made a good decision by bringing him on, because it increased the lead. John’s right, Villa could be injured at any match. He’s the main guy in attack and everyone ‘attacks’ him, so he will get injured. The good thing is that it’s still the beginning, it would’ve been real bad if he’d gotten injured later on.
Let’s just hope he gets better soon though. never a good thing to have a player like him injured, at any time.
DinaPosted from
United Arab Emirates -
i have said before that valencia lacked depth in thier squad! and it now the blind could see that. almendras i dnt think its fair to critisize zigic, the man hasnt played for ages, u dnt expect him to score whenever hes on!,, as for david villa, i thnk what emery did was right die to his benched names, but if we had any other striker, id rather he chose that other striker to play! but thts our problem… depth… silva is not replacable, nor is villa. if we dnt buy any players in winter transfer market… we r doomed, but i think we will cuz with all what have happened i think fernando gomes have realized tht we need a striker… i do no no why ignacio gonzales and banega are loaned out when they r needed on the club so bad. AND FOR GODS SAKE PLAY MADURO INSTEAD OF ALBELDA!
Posted from
United Arab Emirates -
due to his **
Posted from
United Arab Emirates -
Villa, Silva and all other First team Euro champs had extremely long systems and are prone to injury. Easy on the new coach ok? It’s Mata time now. Zigic was once again atrocious. Why didn’t we push him onto Racing?
Posted from
United States
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