Stormy days

Barça

De­spite win­ning five of nine games in Oc­to­ber and look­ing im­pe­ri­ous against strong op­po­si­tion in La Liga – wit­ness the 3-0 and 4-0 drub­bings of Vil­lar­real and Ath­letic, re­spec­tively – Xavi’s side went out of the Cham­pi­ons League due to two poor re­sults against Inter, los­ing 1-0 at the San Siro and draw­ing 3-3 at the Camp Nou. Com­bined with two losses to Bay­ern, 2-0 away and 3-0 at home, the lat­ter after Inter had al­ready clinched qual­i­fi­ca­tion, and a sober­ing 3-1 de­feat in the Clásico at the Bernabéu, the blau­grana were left with a bit­ter­sweet taste from the month of Oc­to­ber. Sec­ond in the league table, just one point be­hind Madrid, No­vem­ber of­fers a point­less fix­ture away at Plzen to fin­ish off the Cham­pi­ons League group stage and two very winnable league games – at home to Alme­ria and away at Os­asuna – be­fore league ac­tion stops until De­cem­ber 31 for the World Cup.

Al­though it is not un­fea­si­ble that Xavi’s side will top the league head­ing into the World Cup break, fans will have mixed feel­ings about hav­ing been dumped out of Eu­rope’s elite com­pe­ti­tion so un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously, and a Eu­ropa League cam­paign in the New Year will only re­ally be com­pen­sated for by win­ning that tour­na­ment and mount­ing a se­ri­ous chal­lenge for the league.

To be fair to Xavi, his side did not look out­classed by any of Bay­ern, Inter or Real Madrid, ex­cept per­haps in the mean­ing­less 3-0 home de­feat to the Bavar­i­ans.

With the im­pe­ri­ous Lewandowski up front along­side Dembélé and a slowly re­turn­ing to top form Ansu Fati, and a dan­ger­ous look­ing Raphinya in the wings, the for­ward line looks more than good enough. And a mid­field of Bus­quets, Gavi, Pedri and De Jong also con­sti­tutes an em­bar­rass­ment of riches. Nei­ther are there any ques­tions over Ter Ste­gen in goal, the big Ger­man hav­ing set a record of 10 clean sheets in the open­ing 12 league games of the sea­son. No, the prob­lem has been a de­fence ham­pered by nu­mer­ous in­juries, cost­ing Barça dearly in Eu­rope. New sign­ings Koundé and Alonso cer­tainly seem to be at the right level, but the loss of the for­mer along with Araújo for a few games, plus se­ri­ous ques­tion marks over Eric García’s de­fen­sive so­lid­ity, have made the cen­tral de­fence weaker, while Hec­tor Bellerín’s lack of match prac­tice and Sergi Roberto’s lack of speed and de­fence nous have led Xavi to play the ex­cel­lent Alex Baldé out of po­si­tion at right back on sev­eral oc­ca­sions. The feel­ing is that if Xavi can get his de­fence fit and con­sis­tent, then Barça will chal­lenge for all re­main­ing tro­phies this sea­son.

Es­panyol

Diego Mar­tinez’ side con­tin­ued to strug­gle in a month that saw them lose only one of six league games, but draw four. The first game of the month at home to Va­len­cia was the most event­ful of the bunch, with an Es­panyol come­back from going be­hind, a send­ing off for both sides, and late drama rob­bing the periq­ui­tos of all three points. In truth, the dam­age was once again self-in­flicted. Sec­ond-choice goal­keeper Álvaro Fernández had got his chance after Ben­jamin Lecomte was sus­pended for his send­ing off in the home de­feat to Real Madrid. How­ever, he com­mit­ted an in­ex­plic­a­ble error at the end of the game against Va­len­cia with Es­panyol 2-1 up after goals from Joselu and Darder had turned the game on its head. With al­most the last ac­tion of the game, Fernández al­lowed a harm­less ball into the box by Va­len­cia de­fender Cömert to fall into the cor­ner of his goal, kiss­ing good­bye to two im­por­tant points. Not sur­pris­ingly, it sig­nalled the re­turn of Lecomte. But the French­man con­tin­ued Es­panyol’s goal­keep­ing woes in the next game at Cádiz, when he missed a cross and the de­fence con­trived to hand away the opener. Again Es­panyol came from be­hind, two goals from Joselu turn­ing it around, be­fore vet­eran striker Lucas Pérez snatched a point for the home side in a game Es­panyol again could eas­ily have won. Joselu’s rich vein of form con­tin­ued as he scored the win­ner in a 1-0 de­feat of Val­ladolid at the RCDE sta­dium, the only win of the month. That was fol­lowed by the only de­feat of the month, 1-0 at Os­asuna. The last two games of Oc­to­ber both brought draws, 2-2 at home to Elche and 1-1 at Mal­lorca.

Girona

Michel’s side suf­fered a mostly mis­er­able Oc­to­ber, six games yield­ing just three points, al­though the last of those, a 1-1 draw at the Bernabéu, will be much cher­ished by fans. The month started with a chas­ten­ing 5-3 loss at home to Real So­ciedad, and this de­spite twice tak­ing the lead after falling be­hind early on. The Basques showed their class in the sec­ond half, though, turn­ing a 3-2 deficit into a 5-3 vic­tory. The fol­low­ing week saw a trip to Atlético, where Girona again fell be­hind to an early goal. A calami­tous error by keeper Juan Car­los Mar­tin handed Cor­rea his sec­ond just after the break, and after a de­flected Riquelme shot re­duced the deficit for Michel’s men, only two spec­tac­u­lar Oblak saves from su­perb Aleix García strikes de­nied Girona a point.

Al­though a sloppy start to the sec­ond half saw Cádiz take the lead at Mon­tilivi, con­stant pres­sure re­sulted in a de­served 101st minute equaliser by Stu­ani, al­beit from the penalty spot. Girona fell be­hind again in their next game at Alme­ria, be­fore com­edy de­fend­ing and an out­ra­geous 40-yard free kick gave the hosts a three-goal cush­ion. A rous­ing come­back so nearly saw Girona snatch a point, but the game ul­ti­mately ended in a 3-2 de­feat. Os­asuna left Mon­tilivi with a point in the last home game of the month, be­fore Stu­ani was once again the man on the spot, tuck­ing away a sec­ond-half penalty for a de­served equaliser to take a point from Real Madrid in the Bernabéu.