Back

2-0: Few options

Morata and Bale sentenced Espanyol at the Santiago Bernabeu

Espanyol could not give the surprise and prolonged one more season their bad statistic in the Santiago Bernabéu. After a good start of the white and blue team, Real Madrid began to generate danger and despite the defensive commitment of the ‘espanyolistas’, Morata ended up scoring. In the second half, the players of Quique Sánchez Flores retained their options until the final stretch when Bale sentenced with a goal to the counter.

Quique Sánchez Flores was forced to make changes in his line up after Marc Navarro’s injury. Without a specific player to substitute Navarro, the manager finally decided to change David Lopez and put him in the right wing back while Oscar Duarte was back to the team after some weeks. The truth is that the team did quite well in the first minutes and David López had the first chance with a header that went out. In the following action Gerard made a tremendous control after controlling a long pass but the referee thought that it was off side.

Therefore, Espanyol started to suffer. Madrid was not doing much but the locals began to arrive to the goal defended by Diego López. After a few corner kicks, Morata scored the first goal of the match. The white and blue team was forced to defend and wasn’t able to create any opportunities.

Thing didn’t change much after the half time despite Hernán Pérez tried to do his best. The player from Paraguay had the best chance for Espanyol and was involved in another good opportunity in which the referee saw hands. Without doing a great match, Espanyol arrived to the last minutes with some options but Gareth Bale, that was back after a long injury, scored the second goal.