VALENCIA. A long-distance race for survival. Valencia CF’s season looks set to be long and agonising. With Valencia’s worst ever start to the league, the first crisis of the campaign has arrived and it has done so at the first opportunity. Valencia are bottom of the table and are in a worrying mood. With the exception of the first half against Barça and the game against Villarreal, Valencia’s performance away from home has been disappointing.
With Sunday’s defeat at the Metropolitano against Atlético de Madrid, Rubén Baraja’s team equalled the second worst streak of consecutive games without a win in its ninety seasons in the First Division, having gone twelve games without a win, seven of them in the final stretch of last season and five at the start of this season.
With a scenario of adversity drawn, Rubén Baraja has shown the reality that he foresees for his team this season. “We have to accept it. The reality is that although the calendar has been complicated because we have played against the teams that are at the top and we have not been able to win yet, we have to accept that this situation is complex and We are not going to get out of it in one or two games. It will take a long time because that is the way the competition is. If you are not able to come here and play at a good level, then it is very difficult to change that,” the coach explained.
Now, Valencia CF’s first objective is to find a way back to winning ways, something that has not happened since April 15. With important absences such as Gayà, Diakhaby, Rafa Mir and Hugo Duro and players with discomfort such as Fran Pérez and André Almeida, it is up to Baraja to find the formula to move forward. The positive thing, for yet another season, is to take refuge in the warmth of Mestalla. The fans, who have not let their team down, face two consecutive ‘finals’ against Girona and Osasuna. Changing the dynamic at the Valencian home ground is essential to stay in a fight that looks set to be exhausting until the end of the season.
