Athletic Bilbao, who never got out of second gear, comfortably swept aside an ailing Real Mallorca 4-0 in one of the worst away performances by the Palma side so far this season. It’s now been four months since we beat Celta Vigo one-nil on the road.
In a display that had “relegation candidates” written all over it, this game was out of sight for Real Mallorca after just 16 minutes. The rest of the game was a horror show from a Mallorca side who basically just didn’t turn up.
Bilbao’s left back Yuri with a couple of improvised finishes put the 48,000 San Mames fans into raptures and us Mallorquinistas into despair. If there was ever such an inept performance from a Mallorca side, even with our poor away record, I’d be hard pushed to remember. Mallorca looked light years away from the one that showed breathtaking football in the first half against Girona in the Copa del Rey just over a week ago. For all the excitement and hype about our Cup run, the truth is that the “pan y mantequilla” of La Liga is much more important. On Friday night too many players looked like they were saving themselves for Tuesday night and we never got going. Just to make matters worse, there was another diabolical refereeing decision from Sr Figueroa Vazquez who whistled a non-existent penalty from Raillo on Nico Williams. It was clear for all to see that Nico had slipped before contact was made and VAR notified the referee who correctly disallowed the penalty kick. It really annoys me to think that this refereeing “imposter” gets a match fee of around 4,000€ for what is gross incompetence.
The rest of the game was a farce as far as Mallorca coach Aguirre and us fans were concerned. We were caught offside five times, somehow managed two corner kicks and striker Cyle Larin was booked for the fifth time, which meant he’ll miss our next league game at home to Rayo Vallecano next Saturday at 4.15pm.
Bilbao won’t have any easier win this season as Mallorca capitulated after half an hour. The home side scored another dubious goal which looked clearly offside but VAR allowed it on the dreaded drawn lines, which indicated that Jaume Costa, by millimetres, had played Guruzeta onside. This was one of those games when everything that could go wrong for Mallorca did go wrong. Coach Aguirre has to get the fire back into the team’s bellies. Three wins in 23 games is very worrying as we await the results of Celta, Cadiz and Sevilla over the next few days.
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Mallorca have to do lot better than that if they hope to stay in La Liga.