Marked for Marcelo Herrera
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 May 2027
A falling-out at Espanyol
Kike García and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 May 2027
Samu Aghehowa falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 May 2027
A move Miguel Galeano would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Miguel Galeano is living that version at Espanyol, and it tends to show in the first month.
Loan watch17 May 2027
The goals keep arriving from Javi Hernàndez’s exile
13 goals in 39 games at Mirandés — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Espanyol updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Market17 May 2027
Miguel Galeano is 20, and Espanyol have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Market17 May 2027
Marcelo Herrera is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Espanyol has been clear about where Marcelo Herrera stands, which is more than many ever get.
Squad17 May 2027
Too much change too quickly at Espanyol
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout17 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Marcelo Herrera
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market17 May 2027
The name of Samu Aghehowa keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Espanyol say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match20 Mar 2027
9 matches without a win for Espanyol
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Espanyol are no longer polite ones.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
Marcos Cuenca: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Espanyol have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Espanyol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Omar El Hilali is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Ansu Fati was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The terraces22 Mar 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Omar El Hilali has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Looking ahead22 Mar 2027
Barcelona next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
Loan watch22 Mar 2027
31 appearances away from home and 10 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Marked 7.57 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Espanyol had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leandro Cabrera
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Espanyol lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Santiago Sanz has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Espanyol can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Espanyol may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market8 Feb 2027
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Omar El Hilali falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Bryan Zaragoza, and the manager let it.
Match6 Feb 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Ansu Fati runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match14 Nov 2026
A derby to forget for Espanyol
Beaten 2‑3 by Barcelona in the one fixture where losing is not allowed. The football was bad enough; the week ahead will be worse.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Leandro Cabrera damages knee ligaments — 133 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 133 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Ansu Fati scores twice — 9.05
Two goals and a mark of 9.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad16 Nov 2026
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Bryan Zaragoza was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Espanyol
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Omar El Hilali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Santiago Sanz to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match31 Oct 2026
8 matches without a win for Espanyol
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Espanyol are no longer polite ones.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Espanyol heard it as anything else.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Espanyol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samu Aghehowa is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Pere Milla gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match31 Oct 2026
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ansu Fati had Espanyol level again within 3 minutes, and Athletic Bilbao never got to play with a lead at all.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Espanyol told Samu Aghehowa something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Guille Bueno in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Espanyol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market2 Nov 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Marcelo Herrera has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Espanyol.