We have won three straight league matches and showed the same form that made us previously look invincible near the beginning of this season. Our top striker, Kanouté had a slight dip in form but now is showing exactly why he has scored over 80 goals for the club in less than four years in Nervión.

We’ve also had several young breakthrough performances from Sevilla Atlético boys José Carlos, Pukki, and most the most impressive Diego Perotti which emphasizes the strength of the cantera and definitely shows just how promising our future is looking.

Yesterday though, straight out of Nervión, came some of the best news us Sevillistas have heard in a very long time.

Both Luis Fabiano and Koné will be returning from their rather lengthy spell on the sidelines with re-occurring knee problems. We’ve lacked goals all season and last week when Chevantón was pronounced out for the season with a fractured foot bone that once again shortened our options up top so the return of these two men will a huge boost to the team, especially Kanouté who hasn’t had a consistent strike partner for most of this season.

Anyone who read my early posts during the pre-season last year would know that I’m not a huge fan of Koné but during the pre-season he heavily impressed me to say the least which made me anxious to see if he could take that form and show it where it really counts – La Liga.

Unfortunately on international duty he tore a ligament behind his kneecap and as a result as been sidelined since the beginning of the season. Luis Fabiano on the other hand has just had minor reoccurring knee problems and because he was constantly being rushed back to play it never truly healed. However, after over a month off, Sevilla team doctor Adolfo Muñoz thinks the Brazilian International is more than ready to play again.

Also back is French Capped defender and one of our anchormen, Julian Escudé. The defender has returned to full training after a back injury that he picked up about a month ago and has been out ever since.

Three vital players back to near-full fitness and will most likely be included in the lineup for Wednesday’s Copa del Rey clash in San Mamés against Athletic Bilbao.

Other News:
Saturday’s man of the match, Frédéric Kanouté has come out openly and said that he expects us to win this extremely important second leg of the Copa.

“It should be a very different game, with other players, but we are confident. We play everything with our maximum, like we have demonstrated today. They might change their players on Wednesday, they might have a different mentality, but so do we. We want to make it to the final and we will be there.”

I usually hate cockiness and arrogance but there isn’t really much cockiness about him, just sheer confidence. And why not? If he can repeat his Saturday form I don’t doubt for one second that we’ll be in the final.

Reports out of Russia today are saying that defending UEFA Cup champions Zenit St. Petersburg are weighing up and offer for our Serbian International defender Ivica Dragutinovic. The versatile defender hasn’t been a favourite under Manolo Jiménez like he was under Juande Ramos and is believed to be unhappy with his lack of opportunities since Fernando Navarro arrived from Mallorca in the summer. “Drago” is under contract until 2011 and has a buyout clause of €20m which seems highly overpriced but thats a classic Sevilla, Del Nido and Monchi trademark. Set the buyout clause ridiculously high so the rich clubs can put their money where their mouth is. LOVE IT. Zenit however are no poor European club by any means, they are actually in fact one of the richest, being sponsored by oil giants Gazprom, €20m would be like pocket change for them. To me this all seems like a good deal except one thing – Russian clubs are a bitch to negotiate with. Look at what happened with Arshavin’s proposed move to Tottenham last summer and eventually his move to their north London rivals Arsenal even took quite the negotiating to seal the deal. Not only have English clubs had problems with Russian negotiations but we ourselves in Nervión had major difficulties buying Kerzhakov three years back when Ramos was in charge. Eventually we realized that the Kanouté/Fabiano partnership was too good to crack for any other striker and ended up selling him back a season and a half later therefore meaning we went through a huge hassle for nothing but none the less, you get what I’m saying. The Russian transfer window closes on March 13th so they will have submit an offer sometime during these next two weeks and maybe they’ll get desperate and pay the full thing. We could definitely use that €20m to patch up a few cracks in the squad.

What a great game yesterday that showed me just how resilient we really can be.

I’m not going to lie, I was a bit on edge yesterday going into the game. No matter how certain one can be about their club, in times of struggle it is easy to think pessimistically.

The Champions League games are generally played on Tuesday and Wednesday, which means that my Tuesday Semantics and Corpus Linguistics class that gets out at 3:30 cuts into my game watching time, and my Advanced Phonetics class from 3:30-6 on Wednesday just can’t give me any leeway.

After getting out of class what a shock to see in the 60th minute it was 3-1. I can’t remember the last time I was shocked that Sevilla were winning, but it was something that needed to happen, and it started happening yesterday.

I didn’t see much of the game as my live-footy.org stream was marginal at best, but I was watching the updates through as.com and Marca.es. I only saw the highlights on the video above and by the looks of it, we missed about 2 or 3 sitters that could have been goals as well. But that is what happens every game.

I do have to say that I was a bit surprised that Koné didn’t start upfront in this game after Juande was praising his ‘doble K’. I’m glad that they got him on in the second half and that he was able to net a goal. What a signing he was. World Class all the way.

I don’t need to talk about all the goals because you can watch them uptop, but wow, what was that keeper doing on Luis Fabiano’s goal? He was out in Switzerland when he finally attempted to take a stab at Kanouté. That was just poor keeping. Not to mention the gift that the defender gave to Kanouté. Simply stunning.

Kanouté was the MOTM by the looks of it and by all of the reports I’ve read about the match. As.com actually said that it was Kanouté’s Exhibition. He scored the first goal, set up Luis Fabiano, Koné and Escudé, and looked to be in top form from all the choppy bits I saw.

I’m curious as to how Dani Alves played. I wanted to see if he turned it up a notch or two from the last few games when his crosses were lacking and his pace was a bit off. If anyone saw the game and could comment on that, I would appreciate it.

Also, in Sevilla yesterday, they had intense flooding that ravaged some of the suburbs, most notibly Alcalá de Guadaira where a good friend of mine lives. Alcalá is actually now declared a ‘zona catastrofíca’ which is basically a State of Emeregency in the States. The game was played in some intense rain, but never halted.

So should I go as far as to saying that we literally and figuratively ‘weathered the storm?’ I’m thinking so. But you are only as good as your next game, and that game will be on Sunday against Deportivo.

Today after driving home at 100mph after sitting in the most boring class of my life, I turned on my GolTV to see Sevilla were already down 1-0 to Espanyol. I didn’t see the first half, so I can’t commentate on it, but as per Crazy Ray Hudson, I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

The second half was ALL Sevilla, minus about 1.5 minutes in which Espanyol managed to pump in 2 goals. I don’t want to go through and give you a minute by minute rundown of the game since that isn’t my style, but I would rather like to talk about the game in general.

* Sevilla have been ‘lacking’ since the passing of Antonio Puerta in the beginning of the season. Sure they rolled against Getafe and against Deportivo, but they are Getafe and Deportivo, that is expected. When they were faced with the test of Arsenal, they lost 3-0 at the Emerates, which was a terrible game for Sevilla and they lost 2-1 against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.

* Sevilla was thought to be the winner before this game even started, and were expected to roll Espanyol, but they didn’t come out firing on all cylinders. Dani Alves wasn’t terribly impressing and to be honest, he hasn’t impressed me much this season. I know we need him at Sevilla, but it is about time that he starts to produce this season and doesn’t wait around until the January transfer window to get out of Sevilla.

* Koné was absolutly magnificent today. The entire second half I didn’t see him give away a ball at all, and at one point he made his way through the entire Espanyol defense and gave a great pass to Alves on the outside. He scored a goal on a world-class header served in from Diego Capel (my second favorite Sevillista at the moment.) Koné is making a claim for the starting spot next to Kanouté for the rest of the season.

* Give credit to Juande Ramos for subbing in Kanouté for Adriano and playing three strikers upfront, not a normal formation for Sevilla. The three strikers upfront were terrorizing the Espanyol back four and allowed numerous balls to be played out wide for Diego Capel and for Jesús Navas, who has been playing great as of late.

* Luis Garcia played a solid game for Espanyol, netting the second goal and keeping Sevilla honest in the back. And subbing in Raul Tamudo proved to be the difference as he scored the game winner in the 88th minute.

* Komeni is an absolutly world-class keeper for Espanyol. He made a few amazing saves that would have given Sevilla the win.

And now I give you the BUENO, the MALO and the FEO

BUENO:
Komeni –was stunning in goal, and was the reason for the Espanyol win.

MALO:
Dani Alves–didn’t have the best crosses today when they were needed. He hasn’t be in form as of late.

FEO:
Kerzkahov–missed 3 clear chances for goals today. He will need to be better if he doesn’t want to watch Kone start in his place.