Carlos Rosique | València (EFE).- Valencia CF, third from last place in the League, walks between the fear of a relegation that gets closer every week, being four points away from permanence due to having lost goal scoring against Almería, and the hope that four victories in a calendar with several clashes against direct rivals can save the team at the Mestalla.
While the Valencian fans continue to be outraged by the refereeing in the clash against Sevilla, the team led by Rubén Baraja is already focusing on the agonizing game that will face them on Sunday at the Martínez Valero against Elche, bottom team in the First Division with barely 13 points and with 4 consecutive losses.
The balance of those from Mestalla as visitors does not invite optimism. The last -and only- occasion this season in which he won away from home in the League, Messi had not yet won the World Cup with Argentina and the Valencianistas’ rival, Osasuna, finished the match with 9 and missed a penalty in a match which ended 1-2.
Despite everything, the fan can only take that burning nail before continuing with the Tourmalet of direct rivals, because, after Elche, Valencia receives Valladolid in a key duel for the aspirations of both teams and travels to Cádiz to finish a streak of five games against teams that are fighting for permanence and that for now has not had a prize for Valencia.
Not winning at the Martínez Valero would end up further sinking the team that has not managed to maintain the spark with which Rubén Baraja entered the dressing room, by achieving two victories in his first two games at Mestalla.
16 defeats in the league season
And it is that Valencia already has 16 defeats in the league season, just two less than the course with the most games lost in the club’s history, which leads to an emergency situation, aggravated, in the opinion of the fans and the club itself , as stated by the corporate director, Javier Solís, last Sunday, due to the arbitration errors.
The complaints are for actions such as that of Sevilla’s first goal, the penalty not whistled for a hand that Del Cerro Grande did not point out despite being required by the VAR or the possible penalty against Fran Pérez at the Camp Nou, situations that end up sinking to a poor Valencia, whom neither the players, nor the club, nor the stands manage to revive.
Without winter signings at a time when the situation was already difficult; With two coach changes, with Gennaro Gattuso, Voro González and Rubén Baraja taking over the bench since September and with a very young squad with no experience in these games, the Elche game could tip the balance towards fear or hope.
He will do it without the injured Justin Kluivert, who had become the great offensive bulwark of the team, and with the doubt of Nico González, the piece in the middle that Baraja has sought since his arrival to achieve the defense-attack balance: for this , he has tested Guillamón and Moriba and even brought out youth squad player Javi Guerra in the last minutes against Sevilla.
Nine days ahead for Valencia CF
With nine days to go, four of them at Mestalla, perhaps Valencia should play like the one who no longer has anything to lose and stop being self-conscious on the field, but inexperience and lack of forcefulness in both areas make it clear the fear with which the squad lives, designed in September to play by touch and not to suffer in each game.
A victory in Elche could help change a dynamic and, why not, think about achieving two consecutive victories in the League, a fact that Valencia has not yet achieved this season, which has once again highlighted Peter Lim’s management deficiencies as the entity’s largest shareholder through Meriton Holdings.
Only those two victories would help to return to a fight for permanence from which more and more teams are falling off the hook, the last three, Sevilla, Girona and Mallorca with individual victories.