Balague: Feeling Fab again

At Valencia there’s a fantastic communion between the fans and Nuno, the manager, who controls the strategy on the pitch.

With the Nicolas Otamendi goal against Atletico Madrid, for instance, Otamendi hid behind two other Valencia players and appeared at the right time for the header. That has obviously been trained.

Also, there is the strategy off the pitch. He was asking for two things ahead of the game against Atletico – the first was that the fans help, which he is asking every time and he knows that he is going to get it because he has identified something very quickly that Valencia fans love - all the players trying really hard, and pace and intensity in everything that they do. They are doing that, no doubt.

Nuno has identified something very quickly that Valencia fans love - all the players trying really hard, and pace and intensity in everything that they do.

They came out really strongly against Atletico at first because he knew that they only had two-and-a-half days to recover from the Juventus game, and it was a four o’clock game when it was about 28 degrees. It’s not so much that the temperature affected Atletico Madrid at first, but certainly it did afterwards when they were 3-0 down. All Valencia had to do was defend and Atletico had to create.

You could see in the second half – even though Atletico showed a lot of personality trying to come back, and could have done if they hadn’t missed a penalty – how their strength diminished.

The other thing Nuno has done very cleverly is to spend the whole week saying how Atletico Madrid are always on the edge of the rules, always very physical, suggesting that they are on the verge of violent. Actually, during the game Valencia committed more fouls and got more yellow cards, but it was a way of putting pressure on the referee.

That is something that Diego Simeone will have to deal with, and he’s very aware that it’s going to happen more often – everybody trying to distract the referee by saying Atletico Madrid play too physically and that they should be punished for it.

Offensive quality

The three times Sevilla have been in the top four they’ve had similar points or even fewer than they have now at the corresponding stage of the season, so it’s a good omen for a team that was accused of being far too defensive against Atletico Madrid.

Deportivo was a completely different rival, but they had a midfield of Stephane Mbia and Ever Banega which is quite attacking, and in front of them two full-backs who always went forward – Coke and Benoit Tremoulinas – and three players behind the striker Carlos Bacca with offensive quality in Gerard Deulofeu, Denis Suarez and Vitolo. So it was a very offensive team and you can see the consequences of that.

Two names stand out – first Deulofeu, with four assists and one goal in three games. Offensively he’s given Unai Emery what he wants, but he’s got to work harder without the ball and will be missing in the big games if he continues to be unbalanced in the way he performs because he’s still not giving enough defensively.

The second name is Mbia, who came late without doing a pre-season but already has made an impact. He reminds me of Yaya Toure a lot – he goes box to box, he’s scored three goals in the last two games, and with Bacca is the top scorer at Sevilla at the moment. He’s become a little bit of an idol and you can see that Sevilla – away from the top three – have a very versatile team, and they’re starting to get the best out of their players.