Real Mallorca rolled over and had their tummy tickled by an Almeria side who began this game eight points behind us. They won this encounter at a canter, thanks to a brilliant hat-trick from their 21-year-old Brazilian prodigy Lazaro Vinicius. Mallorca were without six regulars and looked to be on a hiding to nothing before the game even started. Due to these absentees, coach Aguirre had picked four B team members to make up the numbers, however, none of them made an appearance on the pitch. The starting XI Aguirre picked had several players out of their usual starting position. Normal right back Maffeo was at left back and Antonio Sanchez, usually in mid field, played at right back. Our captain Antonio Raillo was missing through injury and he was sorely missed in a defence that had more holes in it than a Swiss cheese. We just couldn’t cope with the speed and trickery of hat-trick hero Lazaro.
There’s relaxing and there’s relaxing, but Mallorca took relaxing to a new level as we looked half asleep for long periods. In the last 20 minutes we had four strikers on the pitch but who cared. No pasa nada! Most fans in the Mallorcafe were spending that time looking at their watches to see when the agony was finally over. Our inept display on Saturday night bordered on the grotesque and the inclusion of some of our bench players proved just how many of our present squad are simply second division material and not good enough for top flight Spanish football. There’s no doubt there’ll be at least half a dozen changes in playing personnel over the summer. Our next game is on Thursday night when a Valencia team fighting to stay in La Liga come to Palma. Kick-off at the Son Moix is 7.30pm.