La Liga: Zaragoza vs. Valencia

Posted on | December 19, 2007 | No Comments

What has happened to this Valencia side? At the weekend they suffered yet another embarrassing home defeat; this time to Barcelona by three goals to nil. They have now broken their all time record of games without scoring. Valencia have now gone six matches without finding the back of the net and have slumped to seventh in the league and thirteen points from leaders Real Madrid. Added to this, on Monday coach Ronald Koeman surprised all the Valencia supporters by saying he will not count on veteran goalkeeper Santiago Cañazares or captain David Albelda, who will now have to look elsewhere if they want to keep playing. The situation is particularly bad for Albelda, who is a regular in the Spanish selection and will probably have to go abroad if he stands any chance of going to the Euro 2008. Valencia president dismissed ex-coach Quique Sanchez Flores after a couple of bad results and went with the public opinion that the club needed a new coach. But he could never have imagined by disaster that Koeman would bring. He has won just once in eight games and looks set to dismiss even more players, including striker Angulo. This makes very little sense as in the Barcelona game Fernando Morientes fell injured, and with Villa already out the chances of Valencia scoring against Zaragoza are even slimmer.
Zaragoza coach Victor Fernandez must be rubbing his hands at the prospect of facing a Valencia in deep crisis. His side hasn’t lived up to their preseason hype, and is a long way from the European places that they were expecting to be in at this time. The truth is they have had a pretty miserable season so far, and have gone seven games without a win. The main problem seems to be in defense, where they have let in twenty six league goals in sixteen games. Selling Argentinean central defender Gaby Milito to Barcelona seems to have backfired and the club will more than likely strengthen this area when the transfer window opens in January. I’m going for a draw in this match. Neither side is playing as they should be and will be more nervous about losing the three points rather than winning them. Maybe Valencia might even score a goal in this one, but I just don’t know who it will be.
Prediction: Draw (1-1)

Related posts:

1. La Liga: Valencia vs. Zaragoza
2. La Liga: Atlético Madrid vs. Valencia
3. La Liga: Osasuna – Valencia
4. La Liga: Valencia vs. Athletic Bilbao
5. La Liga: Valencia vs. Deportivo de la Coruña

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