The Sky Blue Corner: "Improvement needed"

PACO RODRIGUEZ

Disappointing, frustrating, inexcusable. A lacklustre performance from Celta in the Galician derby handed the Turks a reasonably comfortable victory. Lucas Perez opened the scoring inside 23 minutes before Nolito missed his chance to equalise from the penalty spot. The second half was more of the same, with the game wrapped up late on by Jonny’s comical (painful) own goal.

In our two previous defeats this season, I have felt proud. Proud of my team for fighting until the end and never giving up despite the situation nor the result. This time however, I leave with a sense of disappointment, a feeling of what could have been. We showed no intensity, no spark, and no quality to change the game in our favour. This was our worst performance of the season and regrettably it came in the derby of all games; we made an inferior Deportivo team look decent.

It’s times like these that you realise how small our squad of players is this season. This would be fine if we had a core group of cantera products who are ready to fill in when needed, but right now this does not seem to be the case. Berizzo is a coach who does not usually rotate and I have no problem with that. Therefore, it makes sense that Torrecilla buys players based on the manager’s philosophy and this is something that he has done pretty successfully. The problem of a lack of depth shows itself when we have a few injuries, as any team does. For most of the season we have had two available central defenders, forcing us to play a clearly unfit Fontás as there is no obvious replacement.  The whole idea of having a small squad is to give younger players a chance, but for whatever reason this doesn’t seem to be happening.

Despite the poor performance and result, I don’t have any more worries about the future after this game. We showed little intensity, and for that I am not happy. However, I don’t have any doubt that next week will be different, this is not normal for Celta. I have faith in the players and the manager to show that we can respond in the best possible manner to make this a memorable season for all the right reasons. We’re still in 5^th position and on paper, have a set of favourable fixtures coming up; there is no need to worry prematurely.

I am reluctant to say that next week’s game against Sporting is a must win because of our good start to the season on the whole, but mentally, it may be just that. We need to learn from our mistakes in recent weeks and get back to winning ways, thereby regaining our confidence. This should be the perfect game in order to achieve this if we remain calm and stay true to our philosophy.

And finally, remember, we are still undoubtedly the best team in Galicia. We’ll show them next time.

Best regards and come on Celta!

¡Saludos y Hala Celta!

¡Saudos e Ala Celta!