Your defence is a shambles. There is no use playing well and gifting the opposition a goal or two a game through sloppy backpasses and a lack of concentration. To be fair, if the new guy is crap, maybe you will just sack him in week or two, like we did with McKinlay.
I think it's a psychological problem. Since the very early season, the team is crumbling every time the game starts being hard... If they score a goal, everyone went back and start gifting the ball to the enemy. If they receive a single goal, it looked like it was simply impossible to counter... Anyway, seeing Granada and others team in the bottom of La Liga I also think that, apart of the psychological thing, we had no luck. The same kind of fails we made against Valencia had been seen in other games, and without luck... And about some players using the team as a window... I always think people try to do the best against the best teams, but most of them (young ones specially) might have the idea of using Granada as a bridge to other teams (which i'm not against to), but we must not forget that supporters make that easy. For example: After the game against Valencia, some of them beat Peñaranda! One of the best players! I personally think we have bad supporters (Minute 2: already blaming the team), that happened when we went into La Liga, prizes were higher and most of the young people had to quit and people that never cared about the team went to the stadium, and they were used to see only Madrid and Barcelona kind of plays.
Deportivo (A), Sporting Gijon (H), Real Betis (A), Espanyol (H), Rayo Vallecano (H) are the next fixtures for Granada until the end of March. They are ALL possible, if Granada wakes up and shows the level of playing and concentration seen against Real Madrid. Let's hope the new manager succeeds in waking up the players. With more concentration and some luck, Granada might still be in much better position in 40 days from now.
From what I've I've seen the Granada attack looks lively & the midfield is competitive but the new guy definitely needs to sort that defence out. They look like they could conceded every time the opposition go forward. Unless he has enough decent defenders to work with there's not much he can do though. It would be a real shame if they go down. Especially with the Pozzo record of never being relegated!
Really, Udinese was relegated 3 times under the Pozzo's, in the early years when they were still "learning" the job and still had other economic interests. In 86/87 in the first year under the Pozzo's Udinese arrived last in table due to a -9 points penalization for a previous betting scandal (without penalization it would be safe). Promoted back in serie A two years later. Relegated the following season and again promoted two years later. Relegated again two years later but this time promoted immediately the following season. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udinese_Calcio#Cronistoria Then, since 95/96 Udinese, was never relegated and it's now in its 21st consecutive year in serie A and is now right behind Inter, Roma, Milan and Lazio in the table of current longest persistence in top tier. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistiche_della_Serie_A#Attualit.C3.A0
Fair enough, the Poz never being relegated thing is a myth then. I hear that un-fact quoted a lot! Still, it's been a while though.... Regardless I hope Granada stay up, I kinda like them
FT! 2-0 to Udinese. Granada playing away to Deportivo, kicks off at 5.15 GMT. Doucoure, Peñaranda and Success all starting.
3 Watford players, plus one that's reported to have agreed to sign in the summer, on the field together in La Liga. Who'd have thought it.
FT! 1-0 Granada. Instant impact from the head coach. Deportivo were also given a red card in the 94th minute.
Stupid waste of a free kick Just get it up and down over the wall, who knows even if the rush goalie is going to even catch it
If I were Granada fan I would be thinking: 1. Yay! We won! 2. What the **** are we going to do when all our best players bugger off to Watford.
Doucore was brilliant. He ran further and faster than anyone else on the pitch and was much, much better on the ball than I thought he would be. Man of the match by a mile. When he gets going he eats up the ground and is excellent on the break. Penaranda showed flashes of brilliance but his decision making needs some serious work. Played a peach of a pass to El Arabi in first half so obviously got it in his locker but could've played a simple pass to put someone in a couple of times but went on his own. Success worked really hard defensively which was a side to his game I've never seen before. Came into the game in an attacking sense more when Penaranda went off. Not sure if there's a clash of egos between them but they very rarely pass to each other even when the other one is free. Juanfran can definitely cross a ball which is something neither of our current right backs can do. You never know, if he ever actually turns up at Colney, he could be a decent attacking full back option. Overall, pretty impressed with all of them but Doucore stood out above everyone else on the pitch for me. Vamos Granada! Excellent, disciplined performance.
And that is exactly what has been missing from this Granada side this season. Well done on the new coach for getting the basics right tonight.
I couldn't watch the match, but I read similar comments on Udinese forum, where one said Doucourè WAS Granada's midfield. Now I wonder: why on Hell he played only some cameo appearances (26' in 2 matches and another match glued to bench) under Sandoval and now he played the full match and was maybe the best on field? Maybe the change of manager was not a bad move at all by the Pozzo's. Let's hope Granada continues this way. They have four more matches oncoming within their possibilities where the could gain precious points, and 17th place is now only 1 point away (13th only 5 points away).
At last a good performance and a convincing victory for Udinese! The fear was growing. After gaining a confortable 24 points in first half of season, we had a terrible spell with 3 draws and 5 losses in our last 8 matches, and 0 goals scored at home since the official inauguration of the new stadium. Verona, on the other hand, after an abysmal first half of season was in good form under a new manager and won 10 points in its last 7 matches. A loss could have seen us sucked deep into relegation fight with renewed chances for Verona (which, BTW, is our "rival" team in serie A). Gino Pozzo came back from London. In a long interview he said he's going to stay here and delegate no more, until Udinese is firmly safe. Apparently he also "ordered" the manager a change in module: from our usual (and frankly boring and ineffectual for us) 3-5-2, to a more aggressive 4-3-3.
Normally I would be dead against an owner ever getting involved in matters like that. In that case of Gino, he's put his balls on the chopping block with us on numerous occasions and always been vindicated. I just think: "fair enough mate, you're almost definitely a football genius."
Well, "new coach, sure victory" as we say in Spain... This time it worked! (And must say I wasn't pretty confident about it).. VERY VERY important win to get some moral and try to win some of next games. I still don't trust the new coach a lot but... He made the hard thing, reverse the dynamic.
http://www.marca.com/futbol/granada/2016/03/01/56d5ed56268e3e16568b45fe.html Granada make a signing! 18 yr old Luis Javier Suarez from Colombia. The striker has arrived on loan and will stay with Granada B until June 2017. Granada however have an option to buy Suarez outright .
