05/10/19 v Valencia (A) 1-2
A frustrating defeat as we came close to getting a point against tough opposition. After a tight first half Johan Lugo gave us the lead two minutes into the second period, and we appeared to be holding Valencia and growing in confidence until they equalised in the 70th minute. A point would have been a decent outcome but an injury-time winner from Valencia snatched that away from us.
18/10/19 v Athletic Bilbao (A) 1-3
Another match in which we appeared to be holding our own until the second half, when Bilbao scored three goals in ten minutes just after the hour to completely blow us out of the water. With ten minutes left Vilyson Farrell pulled one back with a powerful long-range thunderbastard but we could not recover from the shock of Bilbao's goal flurry. Farrell was named MOM and also in the team-of-the-week.
27/10/19 v Barcelona (H) 0-2
Same old story, massive difference in attempts on goal (we managed three compared to their 32) and possession, although 42% for us is better than usual against Barca. We managed to hold them goalless in the first half, which I suppose is something, but eventually they broke through and in he end 2-0 isn't bad given their level of dominance.
30/10/19 v Atletico Madrid (H) 0-2
Another hard defeat to swallow as we held on until the 81st minute before a tough
Atletico side took the lead, with them scoring a second in injury-time to give the result an unfairly comfortable slant. The game was tight but we couldn't make a breakthrough and eventually buckled under late pressure.
Vilyson Farrell's long-range strike against Bilbao is named second in the La Liga goal of the month competition for October.
A rough month with four defeats on the spin, although given the opposition it was always going to be tough. Spirited displays against Valencia and Atletico Madrid were encouraging, but not enough to stop us sliding down the table:
