Sevilla's crisis points to Lopetegui and Monchi

“Let's all go in the same direction!

We have come out of worse situations.

This is going to work out for sure!”

This is how Monchi, Sevilla's sports director, expressed himself last night before the 560 fans who traveled to Almería, where the Seville team added its second defeat of the season when in all of last year it only lost four games.

The fans responded to the words of the Sevilla executive with a unanimous shout: “Lopetegui, resign!”.

Monchi also made the players leave the locker room after the match and apologize to the fans for what happened in Almería.

Sevilla have started the season achieving one point out of nine, the worst start in the last 41 years.

And, above all, his game reproduces the defects pointed out in the second round of last year,

where he went from fighting for the League to keeping fourth place very fairly.

Now, with only one point in the locker, they will receive Barcelona in the League on Saturday and later Manchester City in the Champions League.

The reasons for the bad moment of Sevilla correspond to several factors.

The first is the work of Julen Lopetegui.

The second is Monchi's poor planning.

The third is the sale of the two most decisive players in the squad, central defenders Koundé and Diego Carlos.

There were many signs that pointed to a change of cycle in the Sevilla bench.

Above all, the results of a team that has only won three league games out of the last 15. Monchi and Lopetegui met at the end of last season.

It was a very tense appointment, in which the Basque coach and the executive maintained some obvious differences.

Monchi pointed out to Lopetegui the downward trend of the team and the coach appealed to some club structures, such as medical services, which left much to be desired in his opinion when it came to tackling the plague of injuries that the team had suffered.

Deep down, both parties hoped that Lopetegui would have an offer to leave Sevilla despite the fact that he had a contract until 2024 and that he had fulfilled the goal of putting the team in the Champions League.

But the offer did not come.

No level team opted for the coach.

Both met again shortly before the start of the preseason.

The tone was much more conciliatory.

The trainer did not show any complaints and everything remained the same.

Sevilla, who had doubts about the continuity of the Basque, also did not have the courage to give a change of direction, dismiss the coach and start a new project.

At the club it was thought that the team needed to air out despite the fact that Lopetegui had put the team in the Champions League three times in a row, also winning the Europa League in 2020, in his first season.

Now, some officials are wondering how it is possible that all the first team players show this alarmingly poor state of form.

“The squad is not that bad”, he slides to put the focus on the coach.

It is also feared that his method, which has players and employees in a permanent state of tension, is already exhausted.

“In Sevilla there is no joy”, he slips.

At this point comes the second big problem for Sevilla.

Monchi, despite having sold Diego Carlos and Koundé for a fixed price of 81 million euros, works in the midst of a bad economic situation, the product of two courses in which the entity, in an attempt to make the leap in search of the League, dodged its sales policy in order to grow.

The club did not sell Koundé himself or Diego Carlos a year ago, nor Ocampos or other players like En-Nesyri when he had offers to do so.

What's more, he signed Papu, Martial and Corona in the last two winter markets.

All this with a squad full of players with very high chips.

The result is that Sevilla's losses in the last two years are close to 60 million euros,

The sports director has also signed players like Isco and Alex Telles, away from the usual transfer policy of Sevilla, which hires young players who revalues ​​and then sells.

Isco's, who is out of shape, is a clear attempt to please Lopetegui.

One of the most important signings of the summer, the central defender Marcao, has hardly been able to train and accumulates one injury after another.

Only the arrival of Nianzou (a 20-year-old central defender) responds to the usual work canons of the Cadiz sports director.

In Seville there is talk of Monchi's paralysis.

Sevilla, who made physical intensity and defensive strength their best weapons, have also lost Koundé and Diego Carlos, two of the best central defenders in Europe, transferred to Barcelona and Aston Villa.

It is the third factor that explains the decline.

Now, in the midst of the crisis, Monchi has three days left to go to the market and a single free card, since he has not been able to place discards such as Munir, Gudelj or even Rakitic, high-paid footballers who prefer to stay at Sevilla.

With a squad full of similar midfielders, the team lacks speed, intensity and punch.

The task seems enormous for Monchi, who will try to reinvent himself once again while Barcelona and Manchester City appear on the horizon.

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