Mallorca's goal drought continues

The major topic of conversation after the game was why does Ferrer only play one striker at home, leaving Bianchi to plough a lone furrow upfront and being marked by five defenders. He's now become the centre of attention, as he spends a lot of the game running into spaces and laying the ball off to nobody, as he's upfront on his own. Rolando has become a fan's favourite, principally because of the effort he puts in with precious little reward. He twice nutmegged a couple of Zaragoza defenders on Saturday, but it's not his job to go looking for the ball because he's (or should be) our target man. His body language is that of a totally confidence-lacking, thwarted goalscorer without the ball. Until he starts banging them in, the jury's out on whether his high wages, by second division standards, are justified.

After Saturday's painful nil-niller, Albert "Chapi" Ferrer is being heavily criticised by some pundits for his defensive tactical approach. Why doesn't he mix it up and become, especially at home, more dynamic and even switch formation? Michael Pereira, who has been our best player this season by some distance, perhaps should be given a role through the middle, as he's wasted down the flanks. He also likes to shoot from distance and we haven't seen much of that lately. Even if it's off target, any shot from outside the penalty area is better than none at all.

At half time Mallorca had no substitutes warming up and then the coach brought on Brandon Thomas in the 68th minute, which was way too late, when in reality he should have started the game. One of our few goals this season was scored away in Bilbao in a build-up between Brandon and Bianchi. They both look to be our ideal front players but why do they never start together?

Saturday's game was a chance for Mallorca to put down a marker as to how far we've come after 12 games. We're bogged down and stagnant and at his post-match press conference Ferrer again talked too much intangible nonsense. He must take the blame for our lack of goals by not picking an attacking formation at the Son Moix. Yes, we've lost Acuña through injury and Coro has been, so far, an unmitigated disaster, but at least at home throw another attacking option into the mix upfront. There's nothing wrong with our players, it's the system that's being used that's preventing us from a more offensive approach. We're being held back by Ferrer's defensive tactics.

Once again in the Son Moix on Saturday, the flatness of atmosphere wasn't helped by a crowd of just under 8,000 whose noise level at times was drowned out by about 20 Zaragoza fans !

SUMMING UP : Mallorca dropped yet more points at home on Saturday and we were lucky not to lose. Zaragoza missed several gilt-edged chances and for them getting a point was a great result. For the first five minutes Mallorca played like men possessed. Then, after we didn't get an early breakthrough, they sat back, took the foot off the gas and allowed the visitors back into the game. Our defence as usual played well but when we got to midfield things started to go tits up. In truth it was a match that defied any attempt to sit back and watch your favourite team playing your favourite sport. Although the result could have been worse, the experience on Saturday night was about as enjoyable as having wisdom teeth pulled without the benefit of Novocaine. According to one of these silly surveys last week, football players' form can suffer if they have dodgy teeth: Real Mallorca need major surgery in the final third of the pitch where most of our moves break down.

The Palma side are on 14 points, just one from the bottom four, with a trip to Osasuna next Sunday on the horizon. I'm spending the weekend in the beautiful, green city of Pamplona and will be going to the game at El Sadar stadium. The Navarre team's form this season is remarkable, when you consider most of their team are local, their average age is 21 and they're having huge austerity problems. They are highly unlikely to be as charitable or forgiving in front of goal as Zaragoza were on Saturday, and let's just hope that the result won't be as heart-stopping as the last time I visited there in September 2014, when we threw away a 1-3 lead, going down 6-4.