Villarreal 2 - 1 Málaga

Capdevila eyes upturn in fortunes

Updated: October 24, 2009, 12:07 PM UK

Villarreal defender Joan Capdevila has issued a rallying call to his side's fans as the Yellow Submarine face their second bottom-of-the-table clash in a week against Malaga on Sunday.

Just when it looked as though Villarreal's season could not get any worse after taking three points from their opening six games, they crashed to a 2-1 defeat at rock-bottom Xerez last weekend.

That result not only gave the promoted Andalusian side their first ever victory in the Primera Division, but also saw Villarreal, who had been in 19th spot, replace them at the foot of the table and leave the east coast outfit as the only team yet to record a league win this season.

There was even more misery for Villarreal in midweek as well, conceding an injury-time goal to lose 2-1 to a Lazio side that had played the last 25 minutes of their Europa League encounter with only 10 men.

Villarreal have now lost two of their three matches in Europe and are in danger of failing to make it beyond the group stages, a situation that has compounded the club's poor start to their league campaign.

"It's not normal to have so many bad results and the sooner we change our bad luck the better,'' said Capdevila, who made his 100th competitive appearance for Villarreal against Lazio.

"Obviously you cannot say that it's always bad luck, but the team hasn't been so bad as to have deserved to lose these games. Some day your luck has to change.

"Against Lazio we played with more intensity than against Xerez, but we ended up with just as bad a result. What we need to do is not let our heads drop and continue working hard. We deserved a lot more.

"We now have two very important games where we will try to turn the situation around and start climbing up the table.

"Right now the only thing we need to do is win, whether we play well or not,'' added the Spain international, who hopes his side's supporters can play their part at El Madrigal tomorrow.

"We need the help of everybody even though we know that the fans aren't very happy with us.''

Villarreal's poor form has heaped pressure on new coach Ernesto Valverde, and it remains to be seen how much time he will be given to turn things around.

The former Espanyol and Olympiacos boss, who replaced Manuel Pellegrini this summer, is remaining positive though, saying: "If I felt that the team were playing badly in every game I would be worried, but it's not like that.''

The good news for Villarreal is that their opponents this weekend are not in the best of form either.

Malaga started their campaign with an impressive 3-0 win over Atletico Madrid, but since then they have picked up just one point to slump into the bottom two.

Coach Juan Ramon Lopez Muniz said: "It's a good time to win. If we can win there it will show that we are still here and haven't been knocked down.

"Of the seven games we've played, six were good. The last one (2-1 home loss to Almeria) I didn't like so much but there wasn't such a big difference between the two teams. We have to learn how to compete in these even games.

"Villarreal are a good side who are designed to be among the top four, but we can win there if we have a good game.''