Underperforming in xG, xGA and XPTS, Espanyol begrudgingly calls the La Liga cellar home. With just 11 points in 19 games, the club recently hired its third coach in the current season.
Enter Abelardo Fernández, the 49-year-old Spaniard who spent his playing days at centre-back for Barcelona, Sporting de Gijón and Deportivo Alavés while also earning 54 caps for Spain. Of his former clubs, the team he hasn’t managed is Barcelona. Now, he returns to the city of Barcelona, but he’s crossed into enemy territory with Espanyol.
A memorable opening game draw against Barcelona was a great start to his Espanyol tenure. With his new side sitting in 20th place midway through the season, Abelardo will have to quickly pinpoint the necessary changes and implement his coaching philosophy at the club.
In this tactical analysis, we’ll look at what’s ailed Espanyol thus far, look at Abelardo’s tactics from his previous coaching posts and offer an analysis of what’s to come. If Abelardo can repeat his relegation saving performance at Deportivo Alavés, he’ll save a club and eat for free at select Barcelona restaurants all the days of his life.
Preferred Formation
Abelardo’s first course of action is to figure out who fits his tactics and where to play them. This season, Espanyol’s coaches have shown little consistency in formations, starting XI or player positional roles. To a large extent, this comes down to opposition specific tactics and tinkering for the sake of solving the team’s many issues. As you’ll see below, Espanyol has not used any formation for even a quarter of their matches. The side is heavily rotated with a host of player combinations.
Expect Abelardo to remain faithful to the 4-4-2. It’s easy to train, highly structured, and creates simple, yet effective, connections across the field. His biggest issue is determining which players to trust with so little time left in the season. Only goalkeeper Diego López, holding midfielder Marc Roca, and highly-adaptable Sergi Darder are sure starters. If Abelardo continues to play defensively in the middle with David López next to Roca, Darder would likely move to either left-midfield or a second-striker type role.
Where has Espanyol suffered?
Unstructured press
