It went down to the final day and basically to the final kick, but Celta Vigo ultimately stayed up. This isn’t a success story, though, as Celta Vigo had much higher hopes after making several seemingly impressive signings last summer.
Celta Vigo have been down at the bottom all season. They were up in 11th after three matchdays, but then never again went higher than 15th.
Considering their budget and the quality in their squad, that wasn’t good enough and the ownership agreed by sacking coach Fran Escriba after 12 matches. He was replaced with Oscar Garcia, a man with a reputation as a true tactician. But he seemed to tinker too much and never really established a formation for the players to fully get behind.
Celta Vigo often dominated possession in matches, but lacked something in the final third to turn that into goals and often ended up drawing 0-0 in matches they should have won.
After the coronavirus break they looked to have saved themselves with a huge 6-0 win over Alaves and a 1-0 win over Real Sociedad, but then they didn’t win any of their final seven. Even on the final day they couldn’t beat bottom-placed Espanyol and had to rely on Leganes failing to beat Real Madrid to stay up – which happened, but only just.
It’s time for a summer of reflection at Celta Vigo. They have a squad full of good players, but something just wasn’t right this year.
