Archive for February 10th, 2015
No Quick Fix For CD Tenerife

Three lessons may have been learnt by new CD Tenerife coach Raul Agne on his debut, a poor 0-1 home defeat to Girona. Aridane is a waste of space, Tenerife doesn’t always have perfect weather, and the fans want a lot more changes to restore their faith in the club. With little time to assess his new players Agne went for a safe line up and Aridane had a chance to impress in the opening minutes when he found himself through on goal but he wasn’t strong enough and the goalie snuffed out the threat.

Girona had plenty of class to offer and Sanchon ripped Tenerife open down their left flank with Moyano looking slow and unsure. The coach had the back four playing far up the field, a tactic that has worked well for Pochettino at Southampton and Spurs but it takes time to adapt to, the home players were finding it difficult to track back, the pouring rain can’t have helped. Sanchon broke again and set up Sandaza who fired wide. The warning wasn’t headed and the next wave brought the goal after a scrambled clearance led to a Sanchon corner, Carlos Ruiz was particularly slack allowing Lejeune plenty of space on the edge of the box to power a header past Dani Hernandez.

There was more pressure to soak up, Vitolo made some timely interventions and Dani made a couple of fine saves including one down at the post. Sandaza fluffed his chance to increase the lead with a weak shot on the half hour and Sanchon was thwarted by a crunching Camara tackle and a strong punch from Dani just before the break. Agne must have felt a little shell shocked during the interval but tried to change things by bringing on Juan Carlos Real for Cristo Martin. Albizua tested the visiting keeper with a header but he took it with ease. It was no surprise when the slow and ineffective Aridane was taken off, Victor replaced him to add some movement to the team and got in a good position only to sky the ball over the goal. Frustration was creeping in, Suso was hitting dead ends down the right, Cristo Gonzalez was a welcome final sub as Aitor Sanz departed, the 17 year old striker looked confident and eager to attack the ball. New striker Abdon Prats will have to wait aother day for his debut.

The crowd was down , this time just 6,489 had braved the awful weather and with the game slipping away the chants started again for President Concepcion to go. A large banner also demanded that Concepcion and Sporting Director Serrano follow coach Cervera out of the club. Into injury time and a clear handball by Cifuentes in the penalty area was spotted by everyone except the ref, that snub brought howls of protest and a couple of plastic bottles were thrown on the pitch just missing the linesman. It was not a pleasant end to a poor game, Agne has now seen the grisly picture at first hand – the training ground will not be a place for the faint hearted this week.