Football Season Guide

Espanyol were back in the top division last season after their bounce-back promotion the year before. Although the objective for most newly promoted teams is simply to secure survival, the significant investment in the playing squad meant the owners wanted more and they weren’t satisfied with 14th place, so sacked Vicente Moreno. They replaced him with Diego Martinez, the young coach who recently took Granada from the second division to the Europa League quarter-finals. Martinez will be well backed with money and Espanyol have put a good squad together. Although their list of transfers out is long, most of these players were fringe players or older players. So, this was an exercise in trimming the fat of the squad more than anything. Espanyol now have a young squad, but one with bundles of talent. With Martinez, they’ll likely play high energy football that should make them difficult to play against. When it comes to Espanyol, the situation of striker Raul de Tomas could be either a strength or a weakness. He is a top-quality striker and was third-top scorer in the league last season. So, having him is obviously a bonus. However, he has been linked with a transfer away and if Espanyol lose him before the end of the window then that will be a major bow, even if they have already brought in last year’s seventh-top scorer Joselu.