Even penned in the players tunnel and trying to peer through a police guard Quique Medina must have enjoyed watching his CD Tenerife players cruise to a 1-0 away win at Linense. The coach was sent off from the bench after 69 minutes for arguing with the ref over a blatant penalty that could have made this a 2-0 walk over. Long before that Kike Lopez had grabbed a 40 minute lead with a little help from dozey home keeper Pagola.

Linense were a poor team with few ideas other than hooffing the ball at the Tenrife goal from long range. Coach Medina again showed his tactical sense by playing Bravo in a more defensive midfield role and giving Kike licence to cut inside more to take pressure off Aridane who was doubtful with an injury a few days before the match. Kike was like a ferret down the Linense trousers and gave them lots of early problems, their goalie looked slow and hesitant and was thankful to see Perona pulled back for an early offside and Aridane blocked on the left touchline as he threatened to repeat his previous weeks heroics in opening an opposition defence.

The Rock Of Gibraltar loomed large over the packed ground but it was Tenerife that were in charge, Aridane forced the keeper to save from a corner and Chechu and Sicilia both juggled the ball but couldn’t quite get a clean shot in front of goal. Aridane set Kike free but he could only screw the ball back across the face of the goal, Perona should have punished a defensive slip that left him one on one with the keeper but his half shot was saved. The goal had to come, after 40 minutes Kike poked the ball past Olmo and despite his bulky body check he shrugged past him and took it wide before squeezing his shot back, the bewildered keeper stuck out a foot and redirected the ball inside the top netting.

The second half opened with a long range Bravo chip over the bar, Copi made a rare visit to the CDT goal area but was well offside, and Ocana went for power rather than accuracy to blast wide. The penalty that wasn’t given came when Aridane rode a challenge outside the box but was then tripped inside, the ref didn’t want to know but Medina had plenty to say about it and ended up directing operations via his mobile and assistant Roberto Perera on the bench. Bello got sent off with a harsh straight red for a foul on Sergio Rodriguez but it seemd to lift the crowd and the ten men for a while. Sergio Aragoneses had a little flutter losing the ball but Kitoko cleaned up after him. Sergio showed his brilliant best in injury time, first a two handed save from a downward point blank header and then a full length finger tip save at the top corner.

So we go into next Sundays home leg (noon kick off) with a great lead, hopefullythe players will beware of over confidence, Linense can’t have got in the play offs by playing this bad every week.