Espanyol – Rayo Vallecano 21.10.2012

Well, it’s about time for Espanyol to get their first win in La Liga this season.

The team is not playing bad at all lately and clearly deserves to have more points than they currently have collected in the first seven rounds. In the last round even with ten men on the pitch, they could easily have won against Valladolid as visitors. Before that against Betis and Athletic they also could have had more than they collected. The harsh tackles and the five received red cards so far in just seven rounds are clearly a big problem and have big influence over the results. Defender Victor Alvarez was the last victim of this, as because of the red card against Valladolid he will miss the game this weekend, but still Pochettino have Capdevilla, so this won’t be a big problem. Simao is back in the group, after missing the last match because of a “technical decision”, as Pochettino said. He was the biggest signing for the team this summer, but is yet to show his class and help Espanyol. Sergio Garcia is still recovering and is also out.

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Rayo on other hand is playing better than I expected since the start of the season. The team is in the middle of the table with three wins so far (3-1-3). They won their opening game as visitors against Betis, before losing the next two against the Madrid rivals Real and conceding six times against Valladolid (1:6). Last season Rayo was the team, who had conceded the most amount of goals in total (73) and as visitors (47) and so far in this campaign they are again “leaders” in the away games with eleven goals conceded in just three games. Defender Arana suffered an injury in the last training session and most probably will miss the game against Espanyol. I think that this match is a great chance for Espanyol to finally get a first victory this season in La Liga. They showed improvement in the last games and on Sunday I expect a good performance by them at “Cornellà-El Prat”.