Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Valencia appoint Rubén Baraja

Valencia have announced that Rubén Baraja has taken over as manager. He has a contract until  the end of the season, with no option to extend, even if he does well. Yet again, we've had 3 people in charge in a month and he's the 10th permanent manager, not counting Voro, in 9 and a half years of Meriton mismanagement.


Not for the first time, Meriton seem to be making it up as they go along. The idea was that Voro would take over till the end of the season. However, he failed to produce a spark in results and so the panic button was pressed once more.

Unlike some of the obscure choices foisted on us from Singapore, Baraja, of course, needs no introduction. His status as a club legend as a player is assured. He was the top scorer, albeit with a mere 7 goals, when we won the league in 2002. The problem comes when you look at his managerial career. Underwhelming is not the word. Poor is.


He's failed to last even a year in his 5 permanent jobs. In two of them, he lasted just 3 months. Is he the man to bring about a reversal in fortunes? It's hard to have confidence he will. Overall, as well, the experiment of having club legends manage us has usually gone badly rather than well this century. Only Quique Sanchez Flores had any reasonable level of results. Pellegrino and Dukic failed. The spell of Pizzi (hardly a club legend anyway) is probably better remembered by fans than it was. He did get us to a European semi-final, but league results were poor. 

Where Baraja may help is in motivating a mentally fragile squad as someone who has "walked the walk" at Mestalla. He also has credit in the bank with fans, meaning he'll be given more time. Indeed, some would say his appointment is a cynical effort by Meriton to quieten fans. Really at this point, even if Lim appointed Guardiola and signed Haaland and Mbappe, the relationship with fans is irreparably damaged. 

Sad to say, my hopes are low and my confidence is shattered. The Almeria game was the last one I watched and I'm sorry to admit that I haven't regretted skipping the games, for the sake of my nerves. Even if Baraja somehow manages to save this season, we're looking at a placing of 15th or below. The rot and the decline is clear and we all know why. In the very best case scenario that I see, we escape relegation this season but sell players like Mamardashvili and Musah in the summer, replace them with loan players from Barcelona or Atletico Madrid's b-teams and then get relegated next season instead. Fans who naively hope that may improve things will be disappointed. Relegation will make a poor financial situation much worse, as the cases of Malaga, Zaragoza and Depor show. It would not remotely surprise me to see Lim hang on after relegation and even in the miraculous event he sells, there are plenty more "Lims" out there. We are screwed and I don't see a way out.