An Inauspicious Beginning
By: wan | August 31st, 2008
Â
You cannot say that you didn’t see it coming…
Once again the incompetence of the Betis management has caused grief on the pitch. It appears that the optimism of the pre-season has all disappeared in the course of one match.
Â
Â
The line-up for this match that Chaparro sent out was a shocker – a defensive minded 4-5-1 formation that had a surprised Babic on the left and new signing Juande on right. Which begs the question: why work on the 4-3-3 the whole of the pre-season if you were going to change your mind on the first day of La Liga? How are the players to get used to each other within such a short period of time and to tactics that are totally new?
What kind of club would dilly-dally over the signing of new players only for them to be left out of the first team cos they don’t have the time to acclimatise to their new environment nor to their new teammates? Isn’t the pre-season the time to work on building such relationships?
Where are Xisco or Deigo Segura or even Sobis when you know you lack firepower? Why let Caffa leave when you know that Castillo wasn’t going to come in?
Was it any surprise then that Betis slumped to a 1-0 defeat to a vastly inferior Recreativo side? To be fair to the team, they created enough chances to have won the game comfortably, with Capi hitting the post and him and Pavone missing countless chances. But that only proved the point that the Betis attack has been crying out for a goalscorer for a long time.
Betis fans will take heart that the team is still making chances and Capi in particular was very impressive. Pavone too showed his effectiveness but if Betis is to go far, he needs to improve on his sharpness in front of goal.
All in all, I do believe that Betis showed enough in this game to warrant some of the earlier optimism that I had in the team. But if the mismanagement behind the scenes continue, Betis will once again be caught in a relegation dog-fight and this time, they may not survive it.
If there is any consolation, it was the fact that the opening day was a day of upsets all over – with Real, Barca, Bilbao, and even Seville all failing to win against much weaker opponents.
Perhaps there is hope afterall…
Category: Real Betis Team News
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share
      |
Comments
-
I did not expect us to win either! But why Chaparro used a 4-5-1 formation had me puzzled and shocked. I think he underestimated the opponents and clearly you can see the result. I also believe that Pavone needed assistance upfront and he will not threaten if he plays as the lone striker. I hope next match we will revert back to a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 and try to play more attack minded.
Looking forward to seeing Monzon and Garcia debut for Betis.
Posted from
Canada
-
Racing was hardly a weaker opponent… they finished 6th and we finished 5th last year…
Posted from
United States -
Ummm Almeria ended up much higher up the table than Athletic last year too. So I would not call them weaker.
Posted from
United States
Comments are closed
Home 
