Villarreal decide on Quique Setien’s future

Quique Setien has been confirmed as the manager of Villarreal going forward. During the first few months of his tenure he has averaged 1.73 points per match, which would come out to about 66 points in a season. The astute observers will note that if we win our last match of the season, that’s the exact number of points the combined efforts of Setien and Unai Emery will have earned us in this campaign.

At times, football under Setien was exciting and full of goals. Four and five goal outbursts against Espanyol and Athletic club and a thrilling victory over Real Madrid show what the ideal under this manager could be. We’ve also seen plenty of matches where the team just failed to show up, like losses to Valladolid and Rayo, or the whimpering exit from the UEFA Conference League at the hands of Anderlecht.

The jury is still very much out on Setien, but giving him a summer to arrange the team and roster in his image is probably fair given the performance thus far. With a healthy Gerard Moreno (if such a thing is possible) this side probably would have finished top four this season, and there is plenty of talent on hand to do just that next year. We also return to the Europa League, and it would be great to get our hands on that trophy again.

With the manager position settled, attention now turns to the transfer market, where there will be players who need to be offloaded, rich clubs looking to raid our talents, and acquisitions to be made to keep our position in La Liga and improve upon it.