The 2018/19 season has to be considered a success for Leganes, who were major relegation candidates at the beginning of the season after losing their long-time coach Asier Garitano.
Mauricio Pellegrino came in as the new coach and it took some time for things to click. Leganes spent the first several weeks inside the relegation zone, but this was partly because their fixture list at the start of the season was very tough.
Once the fixture list calmed down to give Leganes some easier matches and once Pellegrino worked out his ideal formation, a 5-3-2 system, the team from Madrid started to pick up points with consistency and to move up the table, eventually securing survival with weeks to spare.
The full-backs were very important for Leganes as they played direct football towards their centre-forwards, who were all strong in the air, and the full-backs’ crossing ability was important. Left-back Jonathan Silva was particularly impressive, scoring three goals and providing six assists.
Leganes relied a lot on their home form in this season, as they didn’t like to travel. Even the rare points they picked up on the road tended to be at other nearby teams. 38 of their 45 points were collected at home or within 200km of their stadium.
On the whole, though, Leganes cannot be criticised much at all as they were able to put together a very solid season with one of the smallest budgets in the division and next season's goal will be to replicate it.
