Sevilla 2-1 Depor; “Trouble in the Camp”

By: Anthony | January 7th, 2009

It was reported today that if Manolo Jiménez didn’t pick up the win against Depor at home then he would be sacked as manager with rumours that Spartak Moscow coach Michael Landraup is the favourite to take the job. Whether or not this is true I’m not really sure but if we continue to drop points against weaker teams it is pretty obvious that Jiménez’ days are numbered.

Fortunately for Jiménez we did the job today at home against Depor, however how long this winning streak will go on is certainly questionable.

The scoreline doesn’t really accurately reflect the game, we had way more chances and should have been at least 5-0 up. Then again, none of that matters if the chances don’t result in goals. There’s two ways to look at it, the optimistic way, or you can be more realistic and realize what it all means.

If you’re an optimistic person you can look at this and say well we played great for most of the game and got the win which will hopefully give us a huge morale and confidence boost and help put our lack of recent form behind us. This is the way I look at it though, and this is the reality of it all.

We took our foot off the pedal, something you never do in football, didn’t keep that ever-vital clean sheet that we needed to, nor do we have a comfortable lead heading into A Coruña for the second leg of the clash.

During the first half things looked so promising, Luis Fabiano curled a free kick through the wall which beat the Depor keeper for a typical golazzo. On the run of play it was deserved as we were all over Depor for a good 20 minutes or so. Fabiano was clearly ecstatic about the goal and so he should be considering he hasn’t scored a goal in ages nevermind a beautiful freekick goal like this one. Great start to the game, and it got even better 10 minutes later. Kanoute has been our highest scoring in the season thus far, and despite getting on in years, he’s definitely not showing any signs of slowing down. On the 40th minute like so many times this year, Navas put a perfect ball across to the left and even though it appeared to be hit awkwardly, I personally think Navas saw Capel running in and even though Diego is usually a selfish player, he headed the ball back perfectly for Kanoute who slotted it in. The buildup, mouth watering, the goal celebration, questionable…
After big Fredi scored he proudly showed his Palestinian shirt in protest of what’s currently going on in the Gaza. Once again, why get politics involved with football? It just complicates matters, and I don’t believe anyone’s ideologies should be imposed on the beautiful game. Of course we’re all aware of what is happening in the Middle East but if we wanted to watch that we would have turned on the news, not GolTV.

Anyhow, we went into half 2-0 up and with no signs of slowing down. And when we got out of the gates at half it was proven. We were putting the pressure on the Galicians from the get go but despite our constant pressure we couldn’t put any chances away. Fabiano and Kanoute were on top form and with Navas as well as Capel making fools out of the Deportivo defense this game looked in the bag. We didn’t manage to score anymore but considering Depor only had 1 shot on goal at this point, once again, the game looked over. Of course though my loving team never seems to amaze me. Adriano came on for Capel, and Renato came on for Maresca who had an absolute shocker today, he looked absolutely lost on the pitch. These players are by no means defensive which makes me fail to understand why the team stopped pressing and sat back and let Depor put the pressure on us. Anyway you know what’s coming. Eventually De Guzman beat Crespo on the left flank put in a perfectly weighted low cross on which Mexican international Omar Bravo slotted in past a helpless Palop.

Luckily for us the game ended this way because in the last few minutes Depor definitely was the better team and even though they didn’t have any quality chances, a single other shot on net could have changed the game.

If I have to take one positive thing out of this match it’s this – Navas played amazing. Honestly I love this kid, he tries so hard and he plays his heart out, for 90 minutes he did not stop running and everytime he had the ball the Depor defense were on their toes. Without him barely any chances would be created and it would have been a totally different game. Jesús was easily the man of the match, hand’s down. So much talent, so young, this boy is going to be a world beater.

We now head to A Coruña on Saturday in attempts to get our league form back on track and if we can play today (bar the slacking off) then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t walk out of Galicia with less than 3 points.