A double disaster: two home points lost, and Cani goes down

In the first half against Las Palmas Ruben Cani burst into the penalty box, saw his attempted pullback cleared, and immediately came up limping. He was substituted, but the word from the Villarreal medical staff is disappointing: a severe hamstring injury that will keep him out for at least four weeks, maybe as much as seven. Cani is not a particularly quick healer, or hasn't been in the past, so this is really bad news.

I know we have loved to rag on Cani on this site (longtime readers may remember the post with the immortal title "How do you solve a problem like Cani?") but as you can tell from reading comments on recent gamethreads, he has really picked up his play under Marcelino and has been a key member of our side. With him out, I'm thinking it's time for Javier Aquino to strut his stuff.

The Villarreal injury report, per EPM:

Cani: 4 to 7 weeks out

Hernan Perez: 2 more weeks out

Marcos Senna: should return next week. Same for Olof Mellberg.

Chechu Dorado's injury is fortunately not serious and he should be available as well.

Meanwhile, as Robin pointed out in the gamethread comments, our coach has picked up a three game ban for protesting the incompetence of the referee in last Sunday's match. Pretty much every word of what he said was true, but the football federation clearly is not interested in investigating the referee, only punishing the coach who complained.