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Deportivo la Coruna 1-1 Valencia CF

Posted on 24 February 2009 by Kyle

Valencia has been, uuummmm, struggling recently let’s

say. Well, the trend continued on Sunday with a 1-1 draw versus Depotivo. There were a few surprises

surrounding the match:

  1. Alexis was not only in the squad, but started. He came back from

    injury about a month early. It wasn’t the plan, but it worked out alright.

  2. Thiago Carleto was

    left out of the squad. Considering our only other real option at left back is injured (Emiliano Moretti), Emery

    decided to leave the young Brazilian out. AS said it was a coach’s decision, but I read today that he had a

    little bit of a back problem. Hhhmmmm… I think it is safe to say that Emery had the same feeling about

    Carleto as the rest of us after the Malaga match, not impressed. Can you blame him? 20 pass attempts, 8 good,

    12 bad. Yikes.

  3. Our defense wasn’t the biggest problem with Los Che, it was the offense. 1 shot on

    goal the entire match, and that was David Villa’s goal. Mata, Silva, Villa, and Joaquin were all invisible

    yesterday, except for Villa’s strike obviously. Here are some stats:

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style="mso-yfti-irow: 0;">

style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">

style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;">

style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;">

style="mso-yfti-irow: 8;">

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 1;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; color: #ffffff; line-height: 200%; mso-themecolor: background1;">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">Player

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 1;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; color: #ffffff; line-height: 200%; mso-themecolor: background1;">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">Pass Attempts

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class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 1;"

align="center">Good

Passes

Bad

Passes

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 1;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; color: #ffffff; line-height: 200%; mso-themecolor: background1;">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">Passing Percentage

width="128">

align="center">David Villa

14

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">7

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">7

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">50%

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">David Silva

style="padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-bottom: 0in; width: 67.15pt; padding-top: 0in;

background-color: transparent; border: #f0f0f0;" width="90">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">45

align="center">31

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">14

style="border-right: #f79646 1pt solid; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-left: 5.4pt;

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background-color: transparent; mso-border-right-themecolor: accent6;" width="126">

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">69%

width="128">

align="center">Joaquin

20

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">19

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">1

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">95%

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">Juan Mata

style="padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-bottom: 0in; width: 67.15pt; padding-top: 0in;

background-color: transparent; border: #f0f0f0;" width="90">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">40

align="center">28

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">12

style="border-right: #f79646 1pt solid; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-left: 5.4pt;

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background-color: transparent; mso-border-right-themecolor: accent6;" width="126">

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">70%

width="128">

align="center">Manuel Fernandes

41

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">41

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">0

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">100%

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">Ruben Baraja

style="padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-bottom: 0in; width: 67.15pt; padding-top: 0in;

background-color: transparent; border: #f0f0f0;" width="90">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">42

align="center">34

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">8

style="border-right: #f79646 1pt solid; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-left: 5.4pt;

padding-bottom: 0in; border-left: #f0f0f0; width: 94.5pt; padding-top: 0in; border-bottom: #f0f0f0;

background-color: transparent; mso-border-right-themecolor: accent6;" width="126">

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">81%

width="128">

align="center">Hedwiges Maduro

27

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">26

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">1

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">96%

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">Alexis

style="padding-right: 5.4pt; padding-left: 5.4pt; padding-bottom: 0in; width: 67.15pt; padding-top: 0in;

background-color: transparent; border: #f0f0f0;" width="90">

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">15

align="center">15

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">0

style="border-right: #f79646 1pt solid; padding-right: 5.4pt; border-top: #f0f0f0; padding-left: 5.4pt;

padding-bottom: 0in; border-left: #f0f0f0; width: 94.5pt; padding-top: 0in; border-bottom: #f0f0f0;

background-color: transparent; mso-border-right-themecolor: accent6;" width="126">

style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" align="center">100%

width="128">

align="center">Marchena

28

class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center; mso-yfti-cnfc: 64;" align="center">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">27

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">1

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">96%

Asier Del Horno

31

width="84">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">17

width="78">

style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%;">14

style="font-family: Estrangelo Edessa;">55%

What

sticks out? Our entire left side of the pitch was rubbish. All defenders had a passing percentage of 96% or

higher, except for Del Horno, who was at 55%!?!?! Besides Villa (he’s a striker, passing isn’t his strongest

asset, even though I’d prefer he pass better than Oven Man Del Horno) our worst passers were Silva and Mata.

Worse than Baraja! Even though Joaquin only had 1 bad pass, he really didn’t do much. The offense looked just

plain bad. Depor had 16 shots total to our 7, and they had 7 shots on target to our 1.

Full

match highlights. In Portuguese!

width="400" height="322"

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name="src" value="http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/play?file=http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/1Ddnhs56zvYrFtebBBYb/mov/1"

/>

src="http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/play?file=http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/1Ddnhs56zvYrFtebBBYb/mov/1">

>

The sad thing about all of this is that the defense looked better today than in recent weeks,

yet we still couldn’t get the full 3 points. Alexis had a few shaky moments (like trying to cleat a guy in the

back of the head and pulling another guy down in the box later) but it was his first match back. Marchena

looked his usual horrible self (check out the Marchena video

if you haven’t already). Maduro looked good. And my new hero, Cesar…

src="http://www.ligafutbol.net/wp-content/2009/01/cesar_sanchez.jpg" alt="" width="216" height="195" />

This guy has been AMAZING since coming over from Spurs. It’s funny because so many

people scoffed at the idea of bringing him over (myself included). My, how times have changed. If it weren’t

for this guy, we would be fucked. Cesar pointed out on his blog (

href="http://valencia.theoffside.com">http://valencia.theoffside.com) that Los Che have 6 points from their

last 7 matches. 6 points out of 21 is laughable for any club. But Valencia? Wow…

On top of that Fernando

Gomez has said something shocking! Valencia is broke. Okay, not that shocking. He did say more or less though

that he has no idea when the players will get their money. I assume that goes for the workers at the New

Mestalla as well (

href="http://valenciacf.lasprovincias.es/noticias/2009-02-19/fernando-admite-desconoce-club-20090219.html">Gome

z story in Spanish,

href="http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fvalenciacf.laspro

vincias.es%2Fnoticias%2F2009-02-19%2Ffernando-admite-desconoce-club-20090219.html&sl=es&tl=en&histo

ry_state0=">Gomez story in Google English).

I think it is time Emery 1) Changed formations. I

don’t care what formation, just try something else, cause this isn’t working, and 2) Tried Maduro in central

midfield again. If he played Maduro and Fernandes together, then Maduro could play the holding role and

Fernandes could push forward more. Maduro is a good passer, and even though he isn’t very fast, he is faster

than Baraja or Albelda, so he would be able to cover for Miguel when he pushes forward every single time we

have the ball (Miguel is starting to piss me off with his non-defensive defense, but that is a whole other

post).

On Thursday MIGHTY VALENCIA hosts Dynamo Kyiv. We have the away goal advantage, but… well,

it’s Valencia. Anything is possible (except a clean sheet). Full preview on Tuesday or Wednesday.

2 Comments For This Post

  1. Cesar Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 5:43 am

    Good stuff!
    Let’s hope we can eek out the home win against Kiev and maybe do some damage in the YOOEFA Cup … :)

  2. Johnnie Walker Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    Fuck mate, i dont have any words for this Valencia anymore, except for the fact that dispite the bad news, our Fernando Gomez is at least honest to us unlike a certain sr. Soriano who keept lying his ass off! Hope we improve both on and off the pitch against Kiev, we cant do much worse than now. PS Fernandes 100% passing, highest passes (41) and all correct, mate thats good! Amunt

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