We went behind in the 22nd minute when our normally reliable goalkeeper Pedrag Rajkovic tried to play the ball out from the back. His weak clearance failed to find Nastasic and Aleix Vidal intercepted. He squared to Martin Braithwaite and the Danish striker couldn’t miss, 1-0.
Four minutes before half time Mallorca grabbed the equaliser. The in-form Dani Rodriguez was instrumental in the build up. He found Muriqi unmarked on the edge of the area and with the inside of his foot, Muriqi steered in his 10th goal of the season, 1-1.
It was a brilliant finish from the big Kosovan striker and he once again showed that not only is he one of the best headers of the ball in Spanish top flight football, his lethal left foot is also fully operational ! One of THE goals of the weekend. However, Mallorca’s joy didn’t last long and we conceded another soft goal early in the second half.
Espanyol’s coach Diego Martinez brought on rising star Nico Melamed and he proved to be a real thorn in our defensive set-up, laying on Braithwaite’s winning goal, which the latter scored with consummate ease while our defence were asleep.
The Mallorca coach by now had sensibly decided to ring the changes bringing on Amath and Angel for Kadewere and a disappointing Martin Valjent. With time running out, Mallorca were incensed when what looked like a clear foul on Amath in the penalty area went unpunished. Espanyol’s Gomez had clearly tripped the Senegalese player but the referee indicated the Espanyol player touched the ball first. Replays later showed he clearly hadn’t and a spot kick should have been awarded.
Amath (for me) is simply not good enough for La Liga football. Every time he got the ball on Saturday he gave it away cheaply although having said that the penalty incident deserved at least some perusal from the team in the VAR room. By now even veteran coach Javier Aguirre was getting aerated by the referee’s histrionics and he found his name in the black book for protestation. God knows where they find these referees from but there’s not a weekend goes by when these muppets don’t take centre stage for the wrong reasons.
After the final whistle the Espanyol players were dancing jigs of joy as they won only their third home game of the season. Stats showed they didn’t win a single corner kick in 96 minutes of play and if it wasn’t for two defensive errors they would be still languishing just outside the relegation zone.
As for Mallorca, it’s the same old same old away from home. We’ve now won five consecutive games at home and lost the same number in a row on the road.
Next up its doomed Elche in the Son Moix on Saturday at 18:30. The team from Alicante are rock bottom with just nine points and haven’t won away from home all season. Surely Mallorca will make it six home wins on the bounce ?!!
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