WHEN? Sunday, September 15th, 2019
0800 EST / 1400 CET / 2200 AEST
It seems like an eternity since our last outing vs Celta Vigo, when Mudo Vázquez gave us a 2nd half go-ahead goal, only to be sucker-punched by an ex in Denis Suárez. All things considered, 7 points out of 9 isn’t a bad tally, as we have a chance to build on an improving away form against prickly opponents Deportivo Alavés.
The international break has been rather kind to our players in terms of fitness. Lopetegui initially had all players available earlier this week, but has lost Nolito to injury. As expected, Sergi Gómez misses out, as well as the niños Pozo & Bryan.
The big surprise is of course the inclusion of Munas Dabbur. Perhaps the recruitment of Chicharito will make that task a bit more difficult, but it levels the playing field as to who deserves that starting role, as De Jong has failed to make it his own so far.
INTEGRATION
It’s really early in the season, but it’s still a title race nonetheless. Sevilla can grab 1st spot with a win at Mendizorroza. Every passing week is a chance for this new team to gel, and we’ll see how far we’ve come along after these 2 weeks off. The forward line has looked tepid, as it has only scored 1 of our 4 goals so far. Thankfully, this month is jam-packed with fixtures to expedite that process.
Vamos Sevilla! Tough match but we have strong team and lots of good options on the bench to change it, if it’s not working. It’s a shame Dabbur still not even on bench but Lopetegui can’t pick everyone I suppose. De jong needs to deliver soon, or we will need to look to alternatives to get the goals!
A few good penalty shouts ignored by the referee, one of those referred to VAR. And a terrible linesman decision could have put Sevilla behind. Sevilla on top and the Ref can’t keep ignoring penalty claims.
Oiliver and Banega need to sharpen up, they wan’t too much time on the ball and Alaves are immediately on top of them.
Not that I necessarily agree with Dabbur being left out, because I don’t not at all. But it needs to be remembered that we actually agreed to sign Dabbur in January when we not only had a completely different manager, but we also had a completely different director of football / sporting director pulling the strings.
I definitely feel like that has a part to play in why we have seen nothing of him so far this season, because as pointed out, the players Monchi / Lopetegui have brought in have gone into the squad straight away.
Great 1st half! Shame about this ref, can’t do nothing about that! However, what we can control we did very well! Absolutely dominated the half and scored a great goal! We keep this up and with the quality on our bench we can put this game to bed!
De Jong is too slow for La Liga, he’s only getting by with physicality, even his positioning is bad along with decision making (coming back to being slow in all football aspects).
Would like to see what Chicharito could do with this system, which is quite fast-paced in overall.
