Girona Back to Winning Ways with Convincing Victory Over Valladolid
Girona returned to triumphant form with a commanding 3-0 success over LaLiga underperformers Real Valladolid, who failed to achieve Diego Cocca’s debut match in charge and will endure the festive period in the relegation zone after dropping eight of their nine away league fixtures in the first half of the campaign.
Ending a four-game competitive losing sequence was never going to be straightforward for Girona, who were ousted from the Copa del Rey by third-tier adversaries and are seemingly also exiting Europe, but they approached the early stages in the proper manner to do so. Yáser Asprilla cut inside on his left foot and saw his deflected strike stopped by Karl Hein before Daley Blind tested the keeper with an inventive volley. All of the opportunities kept falling to the favored home side, and Arnau Martínez was next to glance just wide of the target.
There was a notion that a touch of fortune was all the hosts required to break the deadlock, and they received exactly that when Miguel Gutiérrez accidentally deflected a direct free-kick off the leg of teammate David López, sending the ball arcing into the top corner. That was no less than the Blanquivermells merited though, and their lead was extended before halftime by Abel Ruiz, whose header from Gutiérrez’s far-post delivery was fumbled over the line by Hein.
Despite narrowly defeating basement side Valencia 1-0 last weekend, Valladolid were not particularly convincing in that fixture, and they demonstrated very little determination to recover in this one. Instead, more attempts and control shifted Girona’s way, at least until Mario Martín forced Paulo Gazzaniga into a diving stop with a fierce shot from range. Hein then responded with a sharp save of his own to deny Bryan Gil from capping an already brilliant individual performance with a goal, but he couldn’t thwart substitute Arnaud Danjuma from sealing the result with a low effort from the heart of the box to make it three.
The outcome positions Girona within two points of the top five ahead of the remainder of the weekend’s matches, but they remain far from the soaring peaks of last season, during which they were joint leaders of La Liga at this juncture. For Valladolid, it’s yet another crushing away loss, and they will likely return directly to the Segunda División unless Cocca can orchestrate a turnaround in the upcoming year.