He Sevilla FC It will need to be reset quickly. The painful defeat in the derby forces Matías Almeyda to reformulate his plan. Neither with the good feelings of Cornellà-El Prat nor on a day in which there was a certain equality until the … 0-1. This Sevilla loses too much. There are already eight defeats in LaLiga, five of them in the last six games. 23 goals conceded in 14 games, twelve of them in this negative stretch of results, with only one game without conceding a goal.
Nor is Nervión the fortress desired by its people. Only two victories at the Sánchez-Pijzuán – against Barcelona (4-1) and Osasuna (1-0) – have been achieved by Sevilla, who after the defeat against Betis have already lost four games in front of their fans. Not even the support of the fans, who this year has forgotten about the institutional problems, has led to an improvement in the results.. The excuse of those murmurs that gripped the footballers no longer works, but rather a coach’s plan that is beginning to fail, especially due to his defensive problems. Not even the return of Azpilicueta, that defense leader, served to put an end to the gross errors.
Almeyda had managed to get his message into the locker room and also into the stands. But words need actions and this Sevilla’s numbers have not been consistent since the October break. A drop in performance with mitigating factors, from injuries to those individual failures, but which in any team always points out to the coach first. Recovering a rocky version will be an essential condition to reverse the dynamic. Improving the reading of matches, both on and off the pitch, appears as another necessary point for Sevilla to win matches.
The Sevilla team still has room to navigate calmly. An important advantage with the relegation zone, despite adding only three points from the last 18, which should help the coaching staff’s reflection. Valencia, Oviedo and Real Madrid mark Sevilla’s calendar until the Christmas break –plus the addition of the Copa del Rey–, that period that the football director, Antonio Cordón, also pointed out as key to that decision-making in the winter market. Three games in which it is necessary to add points to the scoreboard to scare away ghosts from the past.
Almeyda would do badly if he only focused on the mistakes of his players. The self-criticism of this Sevilla forces us to look further. Both the choice of footballers and the style of play or those changes when the team needs a boost. Neither against Mallorca nor against Betis did Almeyda’s movements work, which stripped the team in the midfield without helping to improve the offensive phase. If the Argentine coach changed the face of Sevilla with his arrival in the summer, now he needs a reformulation to regain a firm grip on the helm. And may the wound from the derby heal as soon as possible.
