New season, new faces

Barça

A huge amount of work be­hind the scenes dur­ing the lat­est trans­fer win­dow saw the de­par­ture of many play­ers ei­ther per­ma­nently – Coutinho, Aubameyang, Trin­cao, Mingueza, Manaj, Wagué, Alves, Puig, Neto, Braith­waite - or on loan - Lenglet, Nico, Umtiti, Dest, Abde, Col­lado - and the ar­rivals of Lewandowski, Raphinya, Koundé, Kessié, Bellerín, Chris­tensen and Alonso. Fol­low­ing a tame 0-0 home draw against Rayo Val­le­cano when all the com­ings and go­ings were still being re­solved, this new Barça got their sea­son on track with three con­vinc­ing league wins: 4-1 at Real So­ciedad, 4-0 at home to Val­ladolid and 3-0 at Sevilla.

If you add Dem­bele, Ansu Fati, Mem­phis and Fer­ran Tor­res to the promis­ing part­ner­ship de­vel­op­ing be­tween new boys Raphinya and the sub­lime Robert Lewon­dowski, then this Barça is an at­tack­ing force to be reck­oned with. Es­pe­cially when you con­sider that young­sters Pedri and Gavi are now in their sec­ond sea­sons with the first team and can play most La Liga teams off the park with their in­ge­nu­ity. The slick for­ward pass­ing and au­da­cious as­sists and goals wit­nessed in the last three games - in­clud­ing Ansu Fati for Dem­bele, and then Lewandowski for Ansu Fati in a sec­ond half de­mo­li­tion of Real, and Lewandowski’s flicked goal vs Val­ladolid - are a sign that Rayo may be one of the only sides to keep a clean sheet against Barça this sea­son.

At the other end of the pitch, the late ad­di­tions of Bellerín and Alonso, as well as Jules Koundé after a drawn-out sum­mer trans­fer saga, means that the de­fence will also be on a surer foot­ing as the sea­son gets going.

One thing is for cer­tain, Xavi’s new side will be put to the sternest of tests this month of Sep­tem­ber when they travel to Bavaria to take on Bay­ern Mu­nich in the Cham­pi­ons League after being drawn in the “group of death” against Bay­ern, Inter Milan and Vik­to­ria Plzen. Given the way Barça have now clicked into gear, the Ger­man cham­pi­ons will not be rel­ish­ing the tie them­selves, how­ever.

Es­panyol

The sea­son started with a promis­ing 2-2 draw at Celta for new coach Diego Mar­tinez, after his side had fallen 2-0 be­hind on 63 mins. Ex­pos­ito re­duced the ar­rears from the edge of the area be­fore Es­panyol were awarded a penalty in the 97th minute. New sign­ing Joselu showed nerves of steel to slot the ball into the top cor­ner and earn Es­panyol a first-day point at a tricky ground.

There then fol­lowed two home de­feats, the first at home to Rayo, who had proven such stern op­po­nents for Barça in their open­ing fix­ture. An early red card for the vis­i­tors gave fans hope, but a sec­ond first-half red, this time for a home player, Sergi Gomez, left the game at 10 vs 10 after just half an hour. Rayo took the lead from the re­sult­ing well-worked free kick, and a sec­ond goal by the vis­i­tors on 59 mins left Es­panyol with a moun­tain to climb. De­spite sev­eral good chances, in­clud­ing two head­ers against the post and a good stop from Rayo’s keeper, Es­panyol could not break their op­po­nents down and fell to their first de­feat of the sea­son.

The sec­ond came against Real Madrid a week later. Joselu equalised an early Vini­cius goal on 43 mins and Es­panyol looked like hang­ing on until the 88th minute, when Ben­zema broke their re­sis­tance first with a typ­i­cal poacher’s fin­ish and then, after VAR sent the ref­eree back to look at an in­ci­dent on the edge of the box, new keeper Ben­jamin Lecomte was deemed to have fouled Ce­bal­los and sent off, leav­ing the un­usual sight of an out­field player - de­fender Le­an­dro Cabr­era - hav­ing to go in goal for the last few min­utes. Ben­zema took full ad­van­tage by slot­ting home the re­sult­ing free kick past the hap­less Cabr­era from 20 yards.

There was bet­ter news right around the cor­ner, how­ever, as new sign­ing Mar­tin Braith­waite notched the win­ner in a 1-0 away win at Ath­letic to chalk up the Periq­ui­tos’ first vic­tory of the cam­paign.

Girona

Girona lost at Va­len­cia on the open­ing day thanks to a need­less penalty awarded for hand­ball when Valery Fernández raised his arm to block a free kick in the wall. Soler sent Mar­tin the wrong way from the spot. Al­though Va­len­cia had de­fender Com­ert sent off on 52 mins, Michel’s side were not able to find a way through and opened the sea­son with a frus­trat­ing de­feat.

The re­ac­tion was im­me­di­ate, how­ever, as Girona beat Getafe con­vinc­ingly at Mon­tilivi in their first home game of the sea­son, with strikes from Stu­ani, a Duarte own goal and Castel­lanos see­ing the hosts into a 3-0 lead be­fore Getafe pulled one back.

The next vis­i­tors to Mon­tilivi were Celta, who took all three points thanks to a win­ner by that man Iago Aspas on 48 mins. This was fol­lowed by a hard earned point away at Mal­lorca to start Sep­tem­ber, Samu Sáiz scor­ing an in­jury time penalty to equalise Raillo’s late opener for the home side.

Al­though they could have as­pired to more than the four points from twelve won so far, the good news is that the two games Girona have lost have been nar­row de­feats, and they are show­ing they can com­pete in the top flight this sea­son.