Spurs loan watch: La Liga round up
By Tom Vinall
On Saturday afternoon, after a weeks break of action for the October international break, La Liga was back in action. With it, Tottenham Hotspur loanees Alejo Veliz and his RCD Espanyol side, in addition to Bryan Gil’s Girona side, both had games.
To begin, Veliz and Espanyol were in action away to Athletic Club, at 13:00 BST. It was to be an absolute nightmare for just about every single person involved, with Espanyol 3-0 down within a half hour, before losing the game 4-1 against an absolutely electric Athletic side.
It was a terrible day for Veliz individually, too, being replaced at half-time. In his 45 minutes on the field, Veliz only had 11 touches of the ball, completed 4/5 passes, and won 1/3 total duels. It is not even a slight on him, but he clearly plays for a team that simply aren’t able to create chances, nor get a foothold on games.
Whilst the consistent game time has been a big plus, with Veliz already having played 628 minutes in La Liga so far, the style of play and the team he plays in, have been far from optimal so far. In those 628 minutes, he has only managed to find the back of the net once, and not since August. The Argentine striker has only been able to record 11 shots in 10 appearances so far, suggesting a clear issue in chance creation throughout the team.
This hammering has left Espanyol 15th in the La Liga table, with 10 points from 10 games. However, other teams do have games in hand, meaning they could finish the weekend in 17th place, just one spot above the relegation zone.
As for Bryan Gil, the injury that ruled him out of Spain national team duty on his return, also ruled him out of this game. In his absence, Girona were defeated 1-0 at home to Real Sociedad, leaving them in 13th place, with twelve points from their 10 games.
Next up for Espanyol is a home game against Sevilla on Friday night, with kick off being 20:00 BST.
As for Girona, they have Champions League action, as they lost Slovakian side SK Slovan Bratislava, one of seven other teams to also have zero points from their opening two games in the competition. Bratislava are seen as one of the whipping boys in the competition, losing 5-1 to Celtic on the opening night, so this is a massive opportunity for Girona if they want to make a play-off spot. Hopefully, Gil has recovered for it. The game is on Wednesday, 20:00 BST kick off.
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