Girona were ninth at the halfway stage of this season, but a disastrous second half of the campaign saw them fall all the way into the relegation zone.
Tactically, this was always going to be a difficult season for Girona as they lost Pablo Machin as coach in the summer and brought in Eusebio.
He wanted to keep the system similar to the 3-4-2-1 that had brought so much success, but it was hard to do this because right-wing-back Pablo Maffeo had left and because both of Girona’s left-wing-backs suffered knee injuries at the very start of the season.
Despite this setback, Girona managed to put some positive results together to start the season. But then things turned and they couldn’t fix it. They lost 14 of their final 19 matches of the season and their inability to stop the rot and a lack of home form saw them fall into the bottom three.
Part of Girona’s problem was that they were far too reliant on Cristhian Stuani. His 19 goals represented 51 percent of Girona’s total LaLiga goals, making them the only team with one player scoring more than half of all the team’s goals. That wasn’t healthy.
It’ll be tough now for Girona as they do have some talented players in their squad and they’ll probably now lose them. They may get some loan players from the City Football Group next season, but it’ll be tough as they target a bounce-back promotion under a new manager.
