Las Palmas 0-0 Villarreal: a snoozer of a match

October has been as poor for Villarreal as September was good, and while the Yellow Submarine picked up a point today and finished with eleven men on the pitch (first time in three La Liga matches for both of those), that pretty much sums up the positives.

Villarreal lacked intensity, any sort of dynamic drive, and only had a couple of shots on goal over the 90 minutes.  Las Palmas were, to be honest, pretty terrible.  Though they had the majority of possession, it was hard to see they had any ideas as to what to do with the ball to create any danger.  And though both teams had half-a-dozen corners each, there were few chances from those.

The best chance Villarreal had to score came early on when Bruno's header off a corner flashed wide.  Nahuel and Bakambu didn't seem to have any idea of how to play together, and Denis Suarez was the only one of our four midfielders to show any sort of creative bent in attack.

Roberto Soldado's introduction at the hour mark did improve things a bit, but only a bit.  He had good ideas, and Denis Suarez, Samu Garcia and Antonio Rukavina all tried to find him in the box at one time or another, but their passes lacked precision.

Las Palmas had a chance early on too, Araujo forcing a save from Areola, and they also had a chance in injury time but Areola fisted away the dangerous free kick at the far post.  Other than that, this was a poor advertisement for the creative, dangerous team Marcelino claims Villarreal is.

Next week, Unai Emery, who says "I know how to play Villarreal" and certainly proved it last season, brings his Sevilla squad to El Madrigal, fresh off a five-goal shellacking of Getafe.  We'd better hope for a Submarine performance 180 degrees from this one if we want to have a chance in that game.   Endavant!