Manolo González rues “avoidable” errors as Espanyol humbled by Villarreal | OneFootball

Manolo González rued his side’s poor defensive performance as Villarreal put four goals past Espanyol in a Monday night thrashing at the Estadio de la Cerámica.

Espanyol have struggled for form since Christmas with Monday’s 4-1 loss extending their winless run to six games across all competitions, and González stressed that “we need to reset now.”

“We’ve got to find our competitiveness again. We need to reset now; we need to go back to attacking without conceding.

Villarreal took a two-goal lead into the break after an acrobatic finish from Georges Mikautadze and an own goal from Jose Salinas.

“The first half shouldn’t have been a 2-0 scoreline, no way. In the second half, we tried to push forward, but they caught us on the transition and killed the game off.

“Villarreal are a talented team, but the goals were avoidable,” the 47-year-old commented post-match.

“They went to the limit and we didn’t. We didn’t finish our counterattacks and we couldn’t get ourselves ahead on the scoreboard, and then the third goal at the start of the second half complicated the match.

“We have to look forward and get back to our best, giving everything on the pitch. We’ve got to take a step forward and turn this situation around.”

The next two fixtures aren’t likely to be kind to the Catalan side, who host an in-form Celta Vigo side on Saturday before making the trip to face third-placed Atlético Madrid a week later.