Celta Vigo stayed up and they did so thanks to Iago Aspas.
The fact that Aspas was injured for so much of the season between January and March meant that Celta slipped into relegation trouble. With Aspas, Celta earned 1.37 points per game, but across their 11 matches without him they were earning just 0.36 points per game.
This, then, was the story of their season. Aspas scored 10 goals before his injury and Celta seemed fine. They then fell into the bottom three while he was out injured, before he returned to score 10 times in nine matches to keep his team up.
Aspas, therefore, was Celta’s strength, while there were many areas of weakness, from the defence to the goalkeeping to the away form to the fact that they went through three coaches during the campaign.
Not only did Celta have three coaches, but each one had a different style and this seemed to confuse the squad rather than help them. After Antonio Mohamed and Miguel Cardoso, they eventually settled on Fran Escriba for the final 12 matches. They were better under Escriba, but this was probably more so because of Aspas’ return from injury.
There are many problems at Celta as they look ahead to next season. Escriba is staying as coach, but he needs to find ways to make the team better as a whole. The club also needs to improve the squad and to bring in some help for Aspas.
