A few months ago we would have welcomed mid table mediocrity but now it’s a reality CD Tenerife fans are yearning for more. Carnaval was swinging into action down in the centre of Santa Cruz but despite promotions and freebies the 1-1 home draw with Huesca only pulled in an 11,241 crowd. Some of the sparkle was missing, especially in a poor second half.

Quick out of the traps, Tenerife’s Omar carved out an early opening but it didn’t find a ready finisher. There was a strong penalty claim when Alberto was roughly brushed aside by Bambock in the box, the ref was lenient to put it mildly and said no. The big surprise this week was the dropping of Raul Camara, Cristian Garcia took his right back place and played well. Saul enjoyed another stand out performance at left back and German was reliable cover for suspended Jorge.

Choco is the man who can excite the fans, he was busy as always, good in the air and always sniffing for a half chance on the ground. Huesca didn’t have a lot to offer but when they threatened the home goal Dani cleared with a powerful two handed punch clear. Cristian Garcia prompted a lesser penalty claim when his cross was stopped by Christian but it was more ball to hands than a genuine call. Just after the half hour a well taken set piece goal put Tenerife ahead, Saul’s corner was nudged on by Alberto and Choco dived in among the flying boots to head it into the net. There were more close efforts to come before the break, Choco missed with a weak shot and Saul put a free kick wide.

It should have been a springboard for a glorious second half but what we got was more like a belly flop. The cautious side of Pep Marti took over and Tenerife went into their shell, this always flags up the visitors to take more chances, Christian floated in a hanging cross that Dani took with ease but it was a warning. Suso replaced Jairo with little impact and new signing Moutinho made his bow in place of Omar, another negative signal.

Machis fancied his chances for Huesca, a weak prod at Dani should have been more testing and he followed a few minutes later by flashing a shot wide, his bright spell also set up a header for Tyronne that wasn’t far away. Tenerife needed another goal but Pep left it until six minutes from the end to bring on Nano, and that was at the expense of Choco. The inevitable happened with a couple of minutes left, a deep right cross found Inigo Lopez and he pooped the ball past Dani for a 1-1 scoreline. Let’s hope that free agent arrival Javi Lara can provide that missing spark, it will certainly give Pep a few tough decisions to make to turn the midfield from a slumbering kitten to a roaring tiger.