🇪🇸 Could Sevilla be relegated just a year after their title charge? | OneFootball

The Basque derby lived up to expectation while another poor result leaves Sevilla staring down the barrel. Here’s a round-up of a pulsating weekend in LaLiga.

Highlights available in UK and Ireland only.

An awful lot can change in a year.

Sevilla came back from the winter break last season in second place, just four points off top spot and with realistic title aspirations.

Fast forward 12 months and the Rojiblancos are second bottom of the table following a 2-1 defeat to Girona on Saturday.

But surely the club that has won the Europa League six times in the past 18 years isn’t at risk of a first relegation to the second tier of Spanish football since 2000?

“The pressure on the players is great, this is a combat not a game,” head coach Jorge Sampaoli said after his unveiling as boss at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán for a second time back at the start of October.

The Argentine was brought in to arrest the slide that started under Julen Lopetegui, but they’ve won just two of the 10 league games under his stewardship.

The decline has yet to be combated.

The stars of the last Europa League win in 2020, Éver Banega and Lucas Ocampos, are gone. So is that campaign’s rock solid centre-back pairing from that campaign, consisting of Jules Koundé and Diego Carlos, who both departed in the summer.

With the strings pulled by sporting director Monchi, Sevilla have been visionaries of squad rebuilding in the recent past. Supporters were encouraged not to fall in love with their stars because they would be leaving very soon but a shiny new toy would always be coming in to replace them.

This latest rebuild is yet to pay dividends.

Tanguy Nianzou, a highly-rated defender brought in from Bayern Munich to soften the blows of losing Koundé and Carlos, summed up Sevilla’s campaign in 90 minutes of Saturday by giving his side the lead before being caught in possession in the build-up to Girona’s 88th-minute winner.

A team that kept 18 clean sheets last season has managed just two so far during this campaign while Rafa Mir is their joint top-goalscorer with a measly three goals.

Isco and Kasper Dolberg, brought in last summer, have already left while another signing — Adnan Janzuaj — has been heavily linked with a move to Valencia this window.

Not even the most hardened Sevilla supporter expected another title tilt this season but you wouldn’t have even had Real Betis fans predicting this outcome on their city rivals.

The reality is starting to settle in that this is a team that is truly in a relegation battle.

“Sometimes one thinks that the best option is to escape, but what excites me is to stay and continue,” Sampaoli insisted.

Whether he stays or goes, escape is the only option.

And elsewhere …

Highlights available in UK and Ireland only

Real Sociedad won 3-1 at the Anoeta the first Basque derby of the season 3-1 with Mikel Oyarzabal scoring his first goal since returning from a nine-month injury layoff. La Real now comfortably sit in third place the league, seven points ahead of fourth-placed Atlético Madrid.

As for Atlético, it really wasn’t Álvaro Morata’s day in Almería.

😱 Goal of the Weekend

Take your pick.

Joselu gave Espanyol the lead over Getafe with a incredible lob from the centre-circle which seemed to be a shoe-in for this award until Enes Ünal went up the other end and produced his only contender a minute later.

🥇 Player of the Weekend

Takefusa Kubo (Real Sociedad)

After four different loan moves the 21-year-old has finally found a home and Sociedad are feeling the benefits.

The playmaker danced through the Athletic Club defence before producing an exquisite finish before winning the penalty for the third goal later on in the Basque derby.