Athletic have a final challenge between the break and the break

Athletic goes to its appointment in Montilivi without Nico Williams and with the clear intention to finish this league after the first break of the season without losing a game and if it is by closing it with three more points , the better. The dynamic in terms of results of Valverde’s team is different from Girona. Míchel’s men, the great revelation of last season, have not quite found the competitive rhythm that led them to qualify for the Champions League a year ago, a competition in which they had just debuted, losing against PSG in Paris and Feyenoord at home.

The Girona team has not won a game since the last delay of the domestic championship. In the League, they lost at home against Barça and against Valencia and drew at Vallecas and at home against Celta. Athletic, on the other hand, have added ten points in the regularity tournament and four at the continental level this season.

Montilivi, in any case, is generally not good with lions. In their four visits, the red and white team, Gaizka Garitano as coach, has only done one. This new Girona-Athletic is scheduled for 2 pm under the arbitration of Canarian Pulido Santana with Del Cerro Grande on VAR.

Change of goalkeeper

Valverde, as is customary so far this season, will apply a new multiple rotation to Montilivi. The red and white coach, initially, lost for this appointment of two players who started on Thursday against AZ. Agirrezabala, despite allegations and appeals presented by Ibaigane, will have to serve a penalty after the sending off suffered on Sunday against Sevilla in San Mamés.

What no one expected was the loss of Nico Williams. The red and white winger remained in Bilbao due to a blow received in the lower back area in the continental match against the Dutch squad. Vesga, who already missed Thursday’s appointment, was also left out of the squad due to an overload in his hamstrings. Not everything, in any case, is bad news for the technician from Gasteiz.

Beñat Prados was part of the delegation that traveled to Girona and Peio Canales, who made his debut as a lion last week against the Seville squad, will once again sit on the bench. We will have to wait, in any case, to verify more precisely the exact size of Valverde’s new rotation.

Sensitive losses

Míchel, the coach who took Girona to the Second Division and took them to the Champions League, seems to have a bigger problem than the Athletic coach in building his starting eleven. Girona has the losses of Tsygankov, Blind, Oriol Romeu and Portu, among others. His team also added two defeats in other Champions League matches played so far.

The red-and-red team has accumulated three league games in Montilivi and managed to win only one of them: 4-0 against Osasuna. The other two ended in a draw against Rayo Vallecano (0-0) and a landslide defeat against Barça (1-4). Beyond the specific casualties that Míchel has, the fact is that Girona have lost very important players after a fantastic last season. This is the case of Aleix Garcia, Eric García, Pablo Torre, Savinho and Dovbyk, among others.