Full-time
Well, that was a fraught end to the game and much more entertaining than a very lacklustre first half. Valencia can feel hard done by. Otamendi didn’t deserve to be sent off. And Aduriz was offside when Viguera shot at goal. Valencia are a point clear in fourth, though, and a draw at Athletic is a decent result at any time in the season. Thanks for reading. Goodnight.
90+4 min: It’s whipped in at goal with his right foot but Otamendi leaps to clear. And then the whistle blows. A point apiece and my prediction holds up.
90+3 min: Benat swings the corner in but Valencia clear. Feghouli leans on Balenxiaga and gives a free-kick away 30 yards out on the left. Benat stands over it …
Updated
90+2 min: Athletic pile forwards and win a corner …
Goal! Athletic 1-1 Valencia (Aduriz 90)
Well, well, well. The former Valencia striker scores after a big slice of fortune. Benat dinks a hopeful ball forwards, Orban slips and the Aduriz pounces. He slips a ball across to Viguera, hi shot is blocked and Aduriz, who was offside when his team-mate shot, watches teh ball bounce off teh post and straight to his instep, which strokes the ball home.
87 min: Now Athletic have all the possession. They could damage Valencia’s Champions League hopes if they can find an accurate final ball, but that is what they have lacked tonight. Valencia have shown all the quality in the final third, despite having only a few chances.
85 min: But his effort is pretty tame, curling straight into the grateful gloves of Alves.
83 min: Rodrigo, who has been impressive tonight, is substituted amid the chaos and I can’t work out who has replaced him. Then Barragan is booked for a push in the back 25 yards from Valencia’s goal. Athletic sniff a point here as Benat stands over the free-kick …
82 min: Amid the pushing and shoving in the middle of a deafening San Mames, Otamendi is sent off! He connected with San Jose after the ball, but it was never a red card. Both players were going for the ball and it was a toe directed at the ball that he won. The Athletic players’ furious reaction surely helped to colour the referee’s decision there.
Updated
81 min: Rodrigo is denied by Iraizoz again and then it all kicks off in a melee in the middle of the pitch after a foul by Otamendi, who wins the ball and then connects with San Jose’s right foot.
79 min: This ref is must be a former rugby union whistleblower. He’s having no backchat whatsoever. Benat swipes Rodrigo’s ankles, Gurpegi gallops over to protest and both get a yellow card. Then Rodrigo leaps up and pounces on a through-ball but Iraizoz smothers his left-footed effort.
77 min: Viguera has a fantastic chance to hook a simple pass across goal to Benat, but he makes no contact with the ball as it bounces up at him and the chance goes begging. He should have done much, much better there.
75 min: Athletic have upped the pace of their play but they’re still very loose in possession. Valencia are drawing fouls from the frustrated Athletic players. They look clever enough to see this game out.
73 min: Negredo has just performed the best first-touch I’ve seen in a long time. A 50-yard ball was hoiked his way, which the striker took with the most nonchalant outside-of-the-boot take you could imagine. A bit like the one from Van Persie that led to a goal at West Ham - I think – a couple of seasons ago. He holds off Etxeita, dinks a cross towards Rodrigo, who De Marcos does well to fend off.
71 min: Valencia release the Beast! Yes, Negredo is on for Alcacer, who has been peripheral. His best touch wasn’t a touch at all. It was a dummy. And a dummy should count as an assist but doesn;t. It’s the most selfless thing you can do on a football pitch. It’s invisible to heatmaps and Opta statisticians.
69 min: Athletic withdraw Rico, with Viguera coming on in his place. And Gomes is off with Susaeta galloping on in his stead.
66 min: Despite looking like a tagine pot, Gomes is still showing some classy footwork. He almost ghosts past Gurpegi to give himself a chance of a shot on goal but an Athletic defender gets a toe to the ball to bring the attack to a close. He fair oozes class. It’s understandable why he is attracting so much attention. He’s 21, but he plays like a wily old veteran.
63 min: Athletic are stung into action. They probe up the right hand side but a strong challenge from Orban brings that particular attack to an end. André Gomes’s bandage now resembles a tagine pot.
GIF: André Gomes con un preservativo en la cabeza pic.twitter.com/ycNuUlZSdL
— Fútbol Gracioso (@FutbolFunnyPics) April 9, 2015
Updated
Goal! Athletic 0-1 Valencia (De Paul 61)
This is a lovely goal that shows that the dummy is not dead. The passing on the left-hand side by Valencia is crisp, with some neat interplay between Rodrigo and Fuego but as Rodrigo pokes the ball to Alcacer, the centre-forward steps over it and draws in the defender, leaving De Paul free to pick the ball up, shimmy to his right, give the keeper the eyes from 12 yards and then place it confidently into the bottom-right corner. Lovely. And much-needed.
58 min: Valencia have got their ball-hogging heads back on now. They’ve had enough of this threatening stuff by Athletic.
54 min: Otamendi clears off the line for Valencia. It followed a header from Aduriz, in which he appeared to float in the air for a week and a half, that was back across goal and looking destined for the far corner before the Valencia defender’s last-ditch clearance. Had Mustafi done a better job at marking Aduriz it would have never happened, mind. Slack marking on his part. Previous to that, there was almost an almighty cock-up by Athletic as Etxeita left a long ball forwards for his goalkeeper Iraizoz, who was thrown by his defender’s movement and missed the ball only to see it roll a yard wide.
Updated
53 min: Lopez, who is a spit of Ander Herrera (well, I reckon) is replaced by Beñat Etxebarria.
52 min: Barragan is fouled. De Paul takes the resulting free-kick. But his delivery is easily cleared. Athletic look the better-drilled team in the set-piece department. Yes, that’s what I have learned from this game so far.
49 min: This is more promising. Williams has been very lively tonight and has just brought the San Mames to life with a fantastic display of power and no little skill on the right wing. It took three Valencia challenges to finally stop the rapid forward. That was almost exciting. Almost.
Updated
46 min: Fantastic save from Alves! At full stretch the Valencia keeper just manages to claw away a header from Etxeita, who rises between Mustafi and Otamendi to divert a powerful effort at goal from around eight yards. But the keeper’s reflexes are razor-sharp.
45 min: Athletic win an early corner. It’s swung out towards Aduriz but Mustafi bravely heads away as the boots are flying just inches from his face. It’s another corner …
It's the second half!
Peep! And hopefully there’ll be a little more action.
Some excitement from a recent match between Valencia and Athletic to make up for the lack of action so far in today’s offering.
Half-time: Athletic 0-0 Valencia
Peep! And that’s that for the first 45 minutes. Valencia look the better team … and probably are the better team but Athletic have shown from set-pieces that they could nick this unless Valencia turn their dominance into solid, hard goals. Yeah, that’s me trying to flam it up a bit. It’s been a bit of a shocker.
Updated
45 min: There’ll be two added minutes before half-time but it looks like both teams are resting up already. Valencia are keeping it at the back and Athletic are putting no pressure on whatsoever.
43 min: Athletic win a corner … and almost score from it. Yes, I know? Lopez, whipped it into the near-post where Gurpegi flicked to the back stick. Williams, who has been involved in everything in the past few minutes, attempts to flick it into the goal at full stretch but he can’t quite get enough on it to turn it in … and the ball bothers the side-netting but no more.
41 min: Some nifty footwork from André Gomes + bandage in midfield leads to him finding a bit of space to drive a ball out wide to De Paul on the right. He shuffles his feet and skips past his marker before swinging a lovely ball towards Rodrigo at the far post. De Marcos does a great impression of a mannequin and fails to react, and the ball bounces past him and Rodrigo, who could have just jabbed a leg at the ball for a great opportunity to score. There was no belief in Rodrigo there.
40 min: This time the corner is too deep and goes out of play on the far side.
38 min: Williams wins a corner in Athletic’s best spell of the match so far. This time, they play it short, diligently keep possession and work an opportunity for Lopez to cross from deep. It’s a curling, dangerous ball that bounces just inches from Williams’s outstretched leg and leads to another corner.
35 min: André Gomes is booked for a late challenge. It was a light feathering of Rico’s left ankle and was barely a free-kick never mind a booking. Valencia make a big deal out of clearing the resulting free-kick and are lucky that a resulting shot strikes an Athletic player’s arm and ends up gifting the away side a free-kick.
34 min: This is now awfully bitty. The whistle’s going every 30 seconds for the slightest bit of contact in any challenge. As a result, the game is lacking in quality. OK, it’s bad.
33 min: Fuego plays a lovely through-ball to Alcacer, who has only the keeper to beat, but the flag is up for offside.
32 min: The San Mames is incensed as Aduriz receives a yellow card for a leading arm that knocks into Mustafi’s head. It wasn;t intentional and was harsh.
31 min: Whether it has something to do with Gomes’s injury upsetting his – and Valencia’s – rhythm or not the game has suffered. Valencia’s passing is not quite as sharp as it was earlier and Athletic are slowly getting back into this.
29 min: Athletic’s resulting corner comes to nothing. Who’d have thought?
27 min: Otamendi gets his feet in a tangle and falls over cartoon-style just inside his own half. Aduriz picks the ball up and sets off with a free run at goal … but his legs are 34 years old and Orban eats up the ground between them and clears before the wily old striker can get a shot off at goal.
25 min: Piatti has twanged a hamstring. He’s going to be taken off. Rodrigo de Paul will replace him.
Updated
23 min: Alcacer has a shy from 20 yards, Iraizoz’s wobbly hands make a meal of it and he only parries out in front of him, Rodrigo rushes in and gets a toe to the ball and then falls to the floor quite theatrically. There’s an appeal for a penalty but there’s no contact as far as I can tell. Rodrigo was looking for that. He didn’t get it and quite rightly.
21 min: … but Aduriz, Athletic’s centre-forward no less, towers above everybody Peter Crouch-style, and clears with a firm forehead well clear of the penalty area.
20 min: Williams gives a silly foul away in a dangerous area. He stood on Orban’s ankle. The free-kick will be taken by Piatti 25 yards out on the left-hand side. He whips it in dangerously …
19 min: The reason there appeared to be apathy around kick-off was down to a political protest apparently. I doubt it was anything to do with non-dom tax or anything. But anyway, I can now report that Athletic fans are making much more noise. More noise than the game deserves really. The home side have been very disjointed so far and are inviting Valencia on to them.
17 min: Gomes is having a bandage wrapped round his head. It’s obviously done a bit more damage than to just his eye. Athletic won a corner just then. It was whipped straight into Alves’s hands, though. Corners eh?
15 min: Gomes has taken a hefty blow to the head. The stretcher comes on. And he quickly leaps up. His eye is bleeding. That’s no great. But he’s going to soldier on. The damage was caused by his own team-mate Otamendi’s elbow I believe. He can have a word about that at half-time.
12 min: Valencia move the ball silkily in midfield before Fuego releases the right-back Barragan (yes, he did used to play for Liverpool) on the wing. His scurries to the byline and plays a cross into the box that’s reasonable, but there’s no conviction in Alcacer’s leap and Athletic clear.
10 min: … but Athletic defend it diligently before giving it straight back to Valencia. They’re going to have to keep possession much better than this.
9 min: Valencia are very much playing this like the home team. They’re incredibly comfortable in possession and are so far not missing their captain, Parejo. They win a free-kick 40 yards out with a nice angle for an in-swinging ball into the box …
6 min: I’m interested to see what the fuss around André Gomes is all about. Every team between here and the Antarctic appears to be on the verge of buying him for a gazillion quid at present. He’s a defensive midfielder, of the metronome mode, with a creative pass in his armoury.
Updated
4 min: Rodrigo plays a cute pass inside Balenziaga for Feghouli to run on to. He gives it the turbo-chargers to the byline but the ball just rolls out of play before the right-winger/inside-right can catch it. It was an inventive bit of play, though.
3 min: “It’ll be good to see a match with some candidates for La Furia Roja (though they seemed to have dropped the”Furia” bit recently) as the national term rebuilds,” writes Charles Antaki in an email I never expected to receive. “Paco Alcácer was on the bench for the last game, and couldn’t really have done worse than Morata (who did score, admittedly). Or no-one at all, as the game ended up.”
2 min: Valencia lump it long a couple of times. Those balls come to nought. They’re the kind of direct passes you imagine Negredo would make good use of, but he’s on the bench tonight.
Peep!
Valencia, in all white, get the game under way. They ping it around for a bit and lose possession pretty early on. Athletic, in their famous red and white stripes, get a touch and now this can be called a game of football.
Updated
Valencia may want to keep an eye on this one …
3 - Aritz Aduriz has scored three of Athletic’s last five La Liga goals against Valencia. Measure
— OptaJose (@OptaJose) April 9, 2015
Right, the players are out. The Athletic fans are making a reasonable noise but with nothing much to play for it’s not stirring stuff at the San Mames.
So, in the absence of any buildup on my TV, let’s talk about co-commentators. Now, the stick Michael Owen gets for his oft-banal, cliche-ridden take on the game appeared to reach a new peak of exasperation in my local last night. Phil Neville is often equally ridiculed as are numerous others (Mark Lawrenson, Clark Carlisle, Andy Townsend etc) who have a go at the job. Now, I’m in no way defending what they say, as it’s often rubbish and offers little-to-no insight, but what do we expect? I reckon co-commentators talk more than they ever have. In years gone by they would sum up what has happened with minutes between passages of play. Now, it’s mere seconds. There’s no broader perspective given on the game. Gary Neville has the ability to do that, but perhaps because he’s a one-off and a bit weird. Maybe a few others too because they have a better vocabulary or an online synonym generator at hand. But, my main point is that the co-commentator would be better if he/she was asked to comment only sporadically. Anyway, I’ve talked about co-commentators. Let me know what you think, if you’re out there and can be bothered saying something/anything about this. If you don’t, then listen to Tame Impala’s new song instead. It’s brill!
Athletic Bilbao team news, not in the groovy graphic style, and not lifted from Twitter
Athletic: Iraizoz; De Marcos, Balenziaga, Etxeita, Gurpegui; San José, Mikel Rico, Unai López; Williams, Aduriz, Ibai
Subs: Aurtenetxe, Beñat, Iago Herrerín, Susaeta, Iraola, Viguera y Guillermo.
Valencia team news, in the groovy graphic style, lifted straight from Twitter
OFICIAL - Once del @valenciacf #athleticVCF pic.twitter.com/a7Y6jUWIIf
— Valencia CF (@valenciacf) April 9, 2015
Updated
Evening. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. And no, this isn’t a Europa League match. So football hipsters you can choose to do something else if you like. But, what’s more hip than eighth versus fourth in La Liga on a school night? OK, fair enough. But there is some promise in this one. Well, as far as Valencia are concerned there is. The Spanish Primera División table is a curious one. Athletic are a whopping 22 points off Valencia despite being only four places below them. They’re actually much closer to the relegation zone than their opponents tonight.
But Valencia are in a right old fight for fourth with Sevilla. At present they’re level on 61 points but tonight’s match is their game in hand. They’ve picked up six wins and two draws in their last eight league games. They’ve conceded only three goals too. And if they win tonight they go just one point behind Atlético Madrid. Finishing third would become a very real possibility. The last time they did that was 2012, when Barcelona and Real Madrid were so far ahead in the league it was laughable. The gap between first and fourth this time round won’t be nearly as big. It would be nice if Valencia could get involved in the scrap at the top again. It’s been a while.
Valencia’s manager, Nuno Espírito Santo, has finally brought some much-needed stability to a club that has been all over the place on and off the field in recent seasons. His young Scottish assistant manager, Ian Cathro, is playing a big part too. You can read more about him in this blog by Sid Lowe.
As for what we can expect tonight, Valencia may not have it all their own way. They are without their captain, Dani Parejo, who is suspended. Their left-back Jose Gaya is injured and their Argentina midfielder Enzo Pérez is also on the treatment table. Athletic have lost just once in their last six and held Valencia to a 0-0 draw at the Mestalla earlier in the season. I can see a draw on the cards, mainly because the injured Parejo is also Valencia’s chief source of goals.
Prediction: Athletic 1-1 Valencia
Gregg will be here shortly.
