Mallorca's cup exit shame

Real Mallorca's miserable run of early cup exits (their third in three seasons) took another turn for the worse on Thursday night when a scratch side were humiliated two-nil by second division newcomers, Huesca, on Thursday night. This game was so bad for the Palma side that visiting goalkeeper and ex-Mallorca cup-winning keeper, Leo Franco, didn't have a shot to save in 93 minutes of football.

The only bright spot for the islanders was the display of newly signed midfielder Abdoul Sissoko, who looked the business and was head and shoulders above any other Mallorca player on a slippery Son Moix pitch. He was taken off at half time, one presumes because of lack of match fitness, and in the second half without his midfield guile our game went down the “carsey.” It's got to a stage now, after only four competitive games, when we don't look anywhere close to being a team that was built up to be one of the promotion favourites. On Thursday night we had no conviction, no spark, and for most of the game we didn't look fit enough.

Sunday's game against rufty-tufty league leaders Numancia should see coach Chapi Ferrer bring back the six players he rested on Thursday. He now has to motivate his players because they looked all over the place. If we don't win and win well against Numancia, then the white hankies will be out. After Thursday's Copa del Rey match there were muted shouts of “Chapi vete ya” (go now), and other Neanderthal numpties were hurling insults at the directors' box.

This present lack and loss of form is not the fault of president/owner Utz Claassen. He's put money into the club, saved it from going under and has bought players along with his director of football, Miguel Angel Nadal, who are surely good enough to get us within touching distance of promotion come the end of the season.

Fingers are now being pointed and voices raised against the coach, who at the moment has a huge problem trying to man-manage a novice team who look like total under-achievers.