Las Palmas’ 2017/18 campaign was a disaster and they finished in the relegation zone, but it wasn’t all that surprising.
They lost their highly renowned coach Quique Setien last summer after he decided to move to Real Betis, while they also lost their best player Kevin-Prince Boateng just two days before the season opener, as he decided to return to Germany. It was too late to really replace Boateng, while their choice for the coaching vacancy was former youth coach Manuel Marquez.
Manuel Marquez actually started off alright and won two of his first six matches, but he then stepped down for personal reasons. Las Palmas were left in a sticky situation and seemed to rush into the appointing of a successor by hiring Pako Ayestaran, who’d recently had a poor spell at Valencia.
He lost six and drew one of his seven league matches in charge, while his successor Paquito won one, drew one and lost two.
It was at that point that Las Palmas turned to Paco Jemez. However, in that same month of January the club also took the bizarre decision to sell their best player Jonathan Vieira to China, which left them very weak in attack. Jemez was able to earn two wins from his first five matches, but Las Palmas then failed to win any of their final 15 matches and logically they were relegated sooner rather than later.
More was expected of Jemez and it didn’t help that he fell out with some of the important players in the squad. But questions must be asked of the board, who have taken several head-scratching decisions in the past year. They’ll need to start making some wise choices, starting with the appointment of a new coach, if they’re to return to LaLiga any time soon.
